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Legal Philadelphia 



Comments and Memories 



By 

ROBERT DAVISON COXE 

Of the Philadelphia Bar 



U 



Philadelphia 

WILLIAM J. CAMPBELL 

1908 






cuss/A AAc- iVu.i 
J.. OOHY A. 



i 



Copyright 1908, by William J. Campbell 



CONTENTS 

Preliminary and Dedicatory 7 

Social side of the profession 9 

A dramatic chapter in the criminal pro- 
cedure of Pennsylvania 23 

The old conveyancers of Philadelphia. . . .37 

Philadelphia Judges 48 

Constant and Victor Guillou 60 

judges Thompson, Allison, Hare and Pratt 66 

Judge John Cadwalader 82 

Judge George Sharswood 88 

Women lawyers 92 

Forensic oratory loi 

David W. Sellers 117 

John Dolman 131 

Horatio Hubbell 136 

MacGregor J. Mitcheson 140 

George W. Thorn 144 

Edward Hopper 152 

Miniatures — short-biographical sketches 156 



Official robes jg2 

Court clerks j gq 

The right of Pennsylvania lawyers to 

practice in all the courts 196 

A Pennsylvania principality 205 

Anecdotes 



212 



PRELIMINARY AND DEDICATORY. 

Let me venture to believe that almost a 
half-century's membership of the Philadel- 
phia bar, including occasional appearances 
in other Pennsylvania jurisdictions, and of 
other States, as well as observation of foreign 
courts, may serve as my adequate credentials, 
in the present emergency, in view of some 
asperities of expression. 

Within little more than a twelvemonth, 
without the intermediary of a tipstaff, bear- 
ing my visiting card, or any ceremony what- 
ever, I was cordially welcomed to the private 
office in the City Hall of a younger member 
of the Philadelphia judiciary. My visit, a 
professional one, was brief, solely because 
of my inability to accept the courteously 
tendered hospitality of the judge and an as- 
sociate in chambers. 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

In the confident hope that this unwonted 
and commendable treatment of a brother 
lawyer and officer of their courts, heralded a 
new and desirable dispensation, I take pleas- 
ure in respectfully dedicating these modest 
utterances to the honorable judges whose 
humanity and civility are thus gratefully 
chronicled. 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL 
PROFESSION. 

Fairmount Park, in Philadelphia, in its 
early days, before the inexorable require- 
ments of the public weal made impossible 
unimpeachable conviviality and resultant 
genteel good-fellowship on the part of those 
who conscientiously complied with Victor 
Hugo's sensible dictum : 

**Buvons pour avoir de I'esprit 
Et non pour le detruire :" — 

was the scene of cheerful Sundays and bright 
summer holidays, both at Belmont and 
Strawberry Mansion ; when and where was 
wont to congregate a coterie of lawyers, 
nearly all of whom have since joined the 
great majority. The recollection of these 
incomparably enjoyable episodes compels 
the thought that the picturesque and gen- 
uinely social side of our professional life is 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

no longer a distinguishing feature of it. 
There is recalled of the choice spirits at these 
gatherings: David W. Sellers, Victor Guillou, 
Samuel S. Hollingsworth, E. Greenough 
Piatt, Thomas Hart, Jr., John Samuel, Sam- 
uel Dickson, James Parsons, Alexander D. 
Campbell, James T. Mitchell, E. Coppee 
Mitchell, and others ; all in the vigorous 
prime of manhood and foremost at the 
junior bar. 

I am not aware that such sociability 
and cordial mutual personal identification 
are so conspicuously a feature of professional 
life to-day. Conditions have, in the mean- 
time, so completely changed that it is more 
than likely that such meetings no longer take 
place. Nothing militated against their con- 
tinuance more than the now fully prevailing 
system of legal education. It is open to 
question whether the Law School turns out 
as good lawyers as were the best types of 

lO 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 

those who served their undivided appren- 
ticeship in the old-fashioned and sufficiently 
equipped and conducted law office. In 
truth, there is nothing like the associations 
of youth ; and no attachments can take firm 
root in the lecture room or the moot court 
like those developed in the intimacy of the 
front office. Read Mr. John Samuel's de- 
lightful paper on John Cadwalader's office, 
to gain an adequate idea of the salutary 
influences that pervaded the atmosphere of 
such a place. The old style hand-made 
lawyer had his individuality efifectively fos- 
tered in such an environment. Almost in- 
variably, there was a daily affectionate inter- 
course between what was, really, a preceptor, 
and what were, really, pupils ; of incalculable 
service in the development, formation and 
perfection of the personal, not less than the 
professional character. One substantial evi- 
dence of this is found in the unquestionable 

1 1 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

fact that the lawyers of to-day are, in the 
main, of a monotonous pattern. Of course, 
their work is well enough done ; but in court 
and out of court the individuality has de- 
parted and the picturesqueness of the social 
side of the life has left it. Perhaps, the in- 
creased number of courts, with no practical 
connection with each other, has contributed 
to impair the sentiment of close relationship ; 
and then, too, the rapid increase in the num- 
ber of lawyers has rendered impossible the 
continuance of the spirit of brotherhood that 
imparted such an interest and such a charm 
to the old order of affairs. The university's 
annual output of machine-made lawyers, 
unavoidably, though surely, exercises its in- 
fluence in effecting the lamentable change. 
One indisputable fact, adverted to in no 
invidious sense, but which it may be fairly 
urged proves that the law-office was more 
successful than the law-school as an agent 

12 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 



in maintaining a standard of conduct is this : 
the several individuals, who have, of late 
years, been disbarred for unpardonable viola- 
tions of professional ethics, were, without ex- 
ception, the exclusive products of the law- 
school. There is in this no intended or im- 
plied censure of the Law Department of the 
University, for moral training cannot, of 
course, be a part of the law-school's curricu- 
lum. On the other hand, an unprincipled 
or dishonest youth is speedily discovered 
and unmasked in the unintermitted inter- 
course of the law office. It has, indeed, con- 
sequently happened that such an undesirable 
student is checked at the very threshold of 
his career, and the profession relieved, be- 
times, of subsequent embarrassment and dis- 
grace. 

Chief among the very agreeable memories 
of the not very distant period when genuine 
sociability was an adorning trait of the law- 

13 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

yer's life in Philadelphia, is that of the 
annual Easter excursion. This peculiarly 
enjoyable event was customarily arranged 
for by those excellent lawyers and whole- 
souled gentlemen, E. Coppee Mitchell, Rich- 
ard P. White and David W. Sellers. It gen- 
erally comprised either a trip to Atlantic 
City or Cape May or Washington. Did the 
weather prove auspicious the party would 
number some forty to fifty ; not an insignifi- 
cant contingent, considering that as late as 
1 88 1, the full membership of the Law Asso- 
ciation did not exceed four hundred, and 
these were, by no means, all active lawyers. 
These annual professional outings were 
necessarily discontinued, when the bar had 
so increased in numbers that there was in- 
curred too great a risk of offending the 
sensibilities of many worthy practitioners, 
who, in the nature of things, were unavoida- 
bly excluded from participation. These in- 

14 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 

formal assemblages were very effectual in 
maintaining the spirit of professional com- 
radeship. They were fairly representative 
of the whole body of the active bar. The 
Lawyers' Club seems to struggle anemically, 
and the yearly meetings of the Pennsylvania 
State Bar Association serve a commendable 
purpose in the particular work it has so well 
undertaken ; and, occasional bar banquets 
are pleasant enough, in their formal but 
ephemeral way. There is, however, neither 
social cement nor an unalloyed democratic 
spirit in either institution. 

The Easter excursion, although, presuma- 
bly, not designed with that object in view, 
exercised a potent influence in uprooting a 
curious condition of affairs, which prevailed 
among Philadelphia lawyers, and was main- 
tained quite up to the period of the break- 
ing out of the Civil War. A large and 
practically controlling section, though really 

15 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

a minority of the bar, successfully arrogated 
to itself the claim to be the representative 
element of the profession. The members of 
this section were, beyond dispute, able and 
respected lawyers. They exacted, not at all, 
however, on account of their professional 
ability, but entirely, for social reasons, a 
peculiar deference from the rest of the bar, 
and from the courts, as well. Remarkable 
as it may now seem, this respectful consid- 
eration was generally accorded. The extra- 
ordinary attitude of this clique, the mainte- 
nance of which was attended with such suc- 
cess, was, in large measure, the outgrowth and 
survival of the narrow spirit of social preju- 
dice which formerly separated Philadelphia 
into well-defined districts, at once mutually 
hostile and envious ; and which, indeed, has 
not been wholly eradicated. To recall the 
period of impassable lines of professional 
caste is like reading a chapter out of "Cran- 

i6 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 

ford." But whatever of justice may still 
linger in the reproach of provinciality that is 
occasionally cast upon the fair fame of 
Philadelphia, there is no possibility, what- 
ever, of a recurrence of the peculiar mani- 
festation of narrow-mindedness exhibited by 
too many of the otherwise irreproachable 
leaders of the old bar. In our day, as 
was not the case at the time referred to, a 
lawyer does not have to wait ''till he come 
to forty year" ere recognition is vouchsafed 
him. Some of the most conspicuous and 
genuine successes have been the richly 
merited destiny of young men whose novi- 
tiate is still a recent episode in their career. 
And yet, another reason, of itself, and with- 
out more, would make the revival of the 
earlier custom impossible. What may with 
sufficient accuracy be designated as profes- 
sional individuality has almost disappeared, 
in these days of law-firms and sky-scraping 

17 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

law-offices. There was such a thing as a 
personal distinction in the days when the 
lawyer had a front-offlce, and especially 
when it was a part of his own home and 
fireside. The difference between the occu- 
pant of his individual house and home and 
the modern cliff-dwellers in flats, is not more 
marked. 

The removal of the professional centre 
from the neighborhood of the old State 
House to the vicinity of the City Hall had 
its very great share in disturbing, not to say 
destroying, previous most pleasant condi- 
tions. It was not generally believed that 
when the several courts and public offices 
were transferred to the City Hall, or Public 
Buildings, as it was, for a while, the clumsy 
fashion to call it, the entire profession, 
practically, would so soon follow. In a few 
years, however, a large majority of the active 
lawyers had abandoned the classic neighbor- 

i8 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 

hood ; and the places that knew them once 
knew them no more. A fraction remained 
and some still are fortunately able to linger 
in the still attractive ancient precincts. 

The two atmospheres are radically differ- 
ent It cannot be questioned that in the 
change of locality, there was occasioned, un- 
consciously, but inevitably, a complete trans- 
formation in the social and friendly relations 
of lawyers with each other. The convenient 
and most agreeable custom of first-fioor 
offices, the comparatively small number of 
lawyers, the proximity of the two beauti- 
ful parks, Washington and Independence 
Squares, and the State House itself, with 
their wealth of historic associations, were the 
chief agencies that gave birth to and con- 
served the peculiar sociability and abiding 
personal interest that distinguished the in- 
tercourse of Philadelphia practitioners quite 
up to the period of removal. 

19 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Another most delightful recollection asso- 
ciates itself with the unique life of the old 
neighborhood. Until a very recent time, the 
region always appropriated by lawyers adja- 
cent to the State House premises was one of 
the most desirable and attractive of residential 
sections. Reminders of these characteristics 
of that portion of the city are still, happily, to 
be found in South Fourth street, on Walnut 
street, and on Washington Square. The 
attorney, constantly passing in his various 
visits to the courts and the "row" offices, on 
his way from his office through Independence 
Square, had his attention, again and again, 
most pleasantly distracted by visions of 
female grace and beauty in the members of 
the excellent families dwelling in the vicinity. 
It was a purely professional neighborhood; 
with no trace of the commercial or general 
business character in it. There must have 
been a subtle element in such a refined en- 



20 



SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 

vironment which favorably affected the pro- 
fessional standard of conduct. However 
keen the legal warfare waged by as able 
lawyers as ever practised at the Philadelphia 
bar, in those modest, severely plain, and in- 
significant old court rooms, the mutual 
courtesy which was, with the rarest except- 
ions, the dominant note, found its pregnant 
germs in the superior air they were privi- 
leged to breathe. 

One may be permitted, even while still 
recognizing and obeying the imperative re- 
quirements of a more — I will not say, earnest, 
for such is not the fact — but strenuous era, 
to indulge in regret that the delightful con- 
ditions thus dwelt upon in entrancing 
retrospect, no longer exist. With their per- 
manent departure, the picturesqueness and 
graciousness of professional life, already 
commented upon, became irrevocable inci- 
dents of the past. The once happy family 

21 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

of lawyers, forced to forsake their intimately 
located professional homes — for they were, 
indeed, more than mere offices — with their 
opportunities for closer personal identifica- 
tion than has since been possible, was dis- 
persed, never to be reunited. Lawyers' clubs 
are indispensable conveniences, but in a city 
like Philadelphia, where the essential spirit 
of club life is a fiction, — if it were ever any- 
thing else than a visionary thing — they will 
never help to either revive or maintain a 
sentiment of professional brotherhood. 



22 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER IN THE 

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE OF 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Franz Berschine, not much more than 
twenty-one years old, well educated and of 
good character, living with his parents on 
the ancestral estate in Krain, the extreme 
Western province of Austria, fourteen years 
ago, became enamored of Maria Kersek, a 
peasant and farm servant in the employ of 
his parents. He proposed marriage, and 
she accepted him. There was inflexible op- 
position on the parents' part, due, princi- 
pally, to the difference in social station of 
the parties ; and the sequel established the 
fact that the refusal of the older folk to agree 
to the proposed marriage was wise and just. 

But the human heart is a cryptic thing, 
and no rule of ethics forbids the susceptible 

23 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

son of an Austrian landed proprietor from 
falling in love with a handsome peasant. 
This particular youth had, indeed, the prece- 
dent of the illustrious Goethe before him, 
and the great poet-philosopher, aristocrat 
incarnate though he was, in his mature years 
married the most rural of rural maidens, 
Christine Vulpius, after having loved her for 
years. And so, Franz Berschine, unheeding 
and disdaining parental opposition, and 
being unable to marry at home without 
parental consent, fled to America with his 
betrothed. Upon their arrival they took up 
their residence at Olyphant, in Lackawanna 
county, in this State, with a colony of mining 
compatriots. Before, however, they had 
completed their arrangements to be married, 
the girl, suddenly and capriciously, an- 
nounced to Berschine that she had fallen in 
love with another man, whom she would 
shortly wed. 

24 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



In his frenzied despair, Berschine pro- 
duced a pistol and endeavored to blow out 
his brains. He had procured this pistol the 
day before, having been told by a relative 
of Maria that she had discarded him. He 
then determined to put an end to his life, if 
Maria confirmed this story. As he placed 
the muzzle of the cocked pistol against his 
forehead, the weapon was pulled away by 
the girl, so that the bullet went into the man's 
chin. In the ensuing struggle for the pistol 
it was again discharged, and the result was 
the death of Maria Kersek. 

Berschine was arrested, indicted for mur- 
der in the first degree and promptly tried in 
the Lackawanna county court at Scranton. 
He was defended by able counsel. They 
were, however, seriously handicapped by 
their client's ignorance of English, in their 
earnest efTort to procure his acquittal, based 
upon their faith in his story as above related, 

25 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

and as communicated to them by Edmund 
A. Bartl, an architect and civil engineer, in 
high repute in Scranton, and a native of 
Austria. 

At the trial Berschine was placed on the 
witness stand in his own defense. He re- 
lated in his own language the circumstances 
already briefly detailed which attended the 
death of Maria Kersek. Most unfortunately, 
however, the official court interpreter was a 
German, and wholly unfamiliar with the 
language or dialect (Krainisch) spoken by 
Berschine, which speech is in no degree 
allied with the German or any language 
kindred to the Teutonic. In consequence 
there was given to the Court and jury a 
wretchedly inaccurate translation (if, indeed, 
the bungling performance of the misinter- 
preter could be called a translation at all) of 
Berschine's testimony. Besides this, a woman 
witness produced by the prosecution swore 

26 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



that she saw Berschine running away from 
the scene of the tragic occurrence, and that 
in his haste to escape he stumbled and fell 
over a barbed wire fence, the wounds from 
which, she said, and it was contended by 
the prosecution, caused the scars on Ber- 
schine's chin. 

As an inevitable consequence, the jury 
brought in a verdict of murder in the first 
degree, and Berschine was on the last day 
of December, 1894, sentenced to death. An 
appeal in his behalf was taken to the Supreme 
Court, but, under the evidence as given at 
the trial, there could be nothing but an 
affirmance of the conviction, which decision 
was announced at the close of the summer 
of 1895. 

At this critical juncture, and through the 
direct agency of Mr. Bartl, the attention of 
the Minister for Austro-Hungary at Wash- 
ington, Mr. Ladislaus von Hengelmiiller, was 

27 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

directed to what was, apparently, a grievous 
miscarriage of justice. With the business- 
like promptness and generous kindhearted- 
ness characteristic of Mr. von Hengelmiiller, 
qualities which have made him one of the 
most popular of foreign representatives at the 
national capital, he instructed me, through 
the then Consul for Austro-Hungary at Phila- 
delphia, the late A. J. Ostheimer, to assist 
the counsel at Scranton, Messrs. Colborn & 
Horn, in an appeal to the Board of Pardons, 
at Harrisburg, in Berschine's behalf. 

To this particular end there was prepared 
and presented to the Board of Pardons a 
very full statement of the different languages 
and dialects spoken under the Austro-Hun- 
garian flag. It was shown that there are 
not less than eight distinct speeches there 
spoken, wholly dissimilar in origin, structure, 
character and other peculiarities, not to 
speak of innumerable dialects. It was fur- 

28 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



ther made plain by competent testimony 
that between German, even Austrian Ger- 
man, and "Krainisch" (the language of the 
Province or District of Krain), Berschine's 
native tongue, there is absolutely no lin- 
guistic relationship whatever. 

The elaborate exposition of the remarkable 
confusion of tongues prevalent in Austro- 
Hungary was of effect to create a doubt, at 
least, in the minds of the members of the 
Pardon Board, as to the trustworthiness of 
the court interpreter's version of Berschine's 
testimony. His sentence was, accordingly, 
commuted to imprisonn.ent for life. And 
here, apparently, and viewing the matter in 
the light of precedent, there was a definite 
end to Berschine's chances for ultimate vin- 
dication. 

But the rest of this story is a most credita- 
ble part of the annals of the Pennsylvania 
Bar. The late Andrew J. Colborn, of the 

29 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 



Scranton Bar, was the senior counsel for the 
defense in the case of Commonwealth vs. 
Berschine. He was an active criminal prac- 
titioner ; in excellent standing in civil prac- 
tice, as well. He was a man of family and, 
being only a modest, hardworking lawyer, 
while prosperous, had always been far from 
wealthy. Nevertheless, amid the cares and 
struggles incident to his varied responsibili- 
ties, domestic and professional, Mr. Colborn 
did not permit himself to despair of this poor 
friendless Austrian youth's final release from 
imprisonment and disgrace. 

And it is a pathetic circumstance that the 
aged mother of Mr. Colborn, a sterling 
woman of old Pennsylvania Scotch ancestry, 
partook in generous measure of her son's 
faith in the innocence of his client; and so 
abiding and fervent was her belief in that 
innocence that upon her very deathbed she 
secured a solemn promise from her son that 

30 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



he would leave no stone unturned to secure 
Berschine's vindication. What a combina- 
tion of impulses to inspire a man ! A vow 
to a sainted mother and the conscientious 
advocate's adequate and consuming sense 
of his professional responsibility. Who shall 
say that the law is a mere business, with in- 
cidents like this to refute the accusation ? 

For several years after the decision of the 
Board of Pardons, Mr. Colborn, in season 
and out of season, confronted by countless 
obstacles, patiently pursued his investigation. 
As, up to this time, he had been obliged to 
meet the necessary expenses out of his own 
not too plethoric purse, and for other obvious 
reasons, he felt justified in communicating 
by letter to Berschine's father, in Austria, a 
full report of the case. In his letter, Mr. 
Colburn expressed his faith in the son's in- 
nocence, giving his reasons therefor, and 
emphasizing his belief that the father would 

31 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

be glad to aid in establishing his son's inno- 
cence by at least contributing toward defray- 
ing the incidental expenses. Mr. Colborn 
was astounded and shocked by the father's 
reply that, as his son had disgraced himself 
by his identification with Maria Kersek, he 
had forfeited all claim to his father's affec- 
tion or consideration, and that his son's fate 
was a matter of complete indifference to him. 
It is worthy of especial comment that 
upon one of Mr. Colborn's visits to Berschine 
in the Eastern Penitentiary, where the pris- 
oner was employed as a nurse in the hospital, 
the then superintendent of the penitentiary 
volunteered the remarkable statement that 
he was confident that Berschine was an in- 
nocent man. And the superintendent went 
on to observe, in substance, that his long ex- 
perience with prisoners and criminals enabled 
him to differentiate between the two classes ; 
and that there was a subtle something, elud- 

32 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



ing analysis, that convinced him that Ber- 
schine was not a murderer. Likewise, a 
prominent at-one-time government official, 
and a former prosecuting officer, who, while 
an inmate of the Eastern Penitentiary and 
suiTering from typhoid fever, was nursed by 
Berschine, subsequently contributed a written 
and most eloquent testimonial in Berschine's 
favor to the Board of Pardons, observing 
that it was incredible to him that such a 
young man could ever have committed 
murder. 

In his explicit reliance upon Berschine's 
explanation of the scars upon his chin, Mr. 
Colborn could not but discredit the circum- 
stantial story told by the woman witness who 
testified at the trial as to their origin. He 
was, accordingly, encouraged to endeavor 
to obtain, if possible, a contradiction of 
her tale, if not from independent sources, 
then from the woman herself. He learned 

33 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

that she was a particular friend of the man 
for whom Maria Kersek had discarded Ber- 
schine ; and that she had been, evidently 
and consequently, much prejudiced against 
Berschine. This witness had in the mean- 
time left the neighborhood of Olyphant, and 
a long time elapsed before any trace of her 
could be found. Finally, however, it was 
ascertained that she had wandered from 
place to place until she had died in a small 
town in the State of Ohio. With only this 
feeble clue, Mr. Colborn repaired to this 
town, and, knowing the woman to have been 
of the Roman Catholic faith, he successfully 
sought an interview with a priest who had 
been present during her last moments, Mr. 
Colborn thinking that she might have con- 
fessed her perjury to this cleric. 

But here the zealous advocate was again 
more than embarrassed by the reflection that 
the secrets of the confessional are inviolable. 



34 



A DRAMATIC CHAPTER 



Discouraged, but not abandoning hope, he 
contented himself, after confirming his sus- 
picion that the woman had confessed before 
her death to this priest, with inquiry of him 
whether, from what he, the priest, had learned 
from the woman at any time, he believed 
Franz Berschine was guilty or innocent of 
the death of Maria Kersek. To this ingeni- 
ously devised question, the canons of the 
Church did not deny the priest the right to 
reply that he was satisfied that Berschine 
was innocent of the murder. Further, the 
priest consented to make oath to his state- 
ment to that effect. With this affidavit Mr. 
Colborn returned to Scranton. His next 
step was to procure an order from the proper 
authorities permitting a surgeon to visit the 
Eastern Penitentiary and make an examina- 
tion of the scars on Berschine's face. 

It should be observed that a request for 
such an examination was refused, and no 

35 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

doubt properly, under the evidence as it 
went to the jury, by the judge at Scranton 
on Berschine's trial. The result of the sur- 
gical examination thus had at the Eastern 
Penitentiary was the extraction from Ber- 
schine's chin of a pistol bullet of the same 
calibre as that of the pistol with which Maria 
Kersek met her death. 

Proudly equipped with these most con- 
vincing of independent and circumstantial 
proofs, Mr. Colborn appeared before the 
Board of Pardons at their next meeting. 
Upon the presentation of the respective affi- 
davits of the priest and of the examining 
surgeon, the Board of Pardons immediately 
and without formal consultation, directed the 
immediate and unconditional release of 
Franz Berschine. Since then Berschine has 
been in the employment of Mr. Bartl, whose 
continued interest in his behalf was such an 
important factor. There is every reason to 
believe that he has before him a career of 
respectability and honor. 

36 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS. 

The old conveyancers of Philadelphia, al- 
though not always members of the bar, had, 
as a class, an intimate and not merely a 
technical or unscientific familiarity with the 
law of real estate and of decedents, of which 
the best of contemporary lawyers would have 
been proud. Among the most prominent 
of these conveyancing practitioners were 
Thomas S. Mitchell, the dean of the profes- 
sion in his day ; J. Warner Erwin, whose 
handsome face and dignified person typified 
a class for many good reasons, regrettably 
departed ; Charles Rhoads, whose com- 
modious offices in North Seventh street be- 
tokened a large and profitable business; 
James H. Castle, a scholar and gentleman 
in the exactest sense of the designation ; 

37 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Charles M. Wagner, a sound real estate 
lawyer with a most extensive conveyancing 
practice in the old Northern Liberties Dis- 
trict, Andrew D. Cash, Thomas and Pass- 
more Williamson, Philp Wagner, Alexander 
Thackara, Jonathan K. Folwell, Daniel M. 
Fox, J. Hays Carson, Mahlon D. Liven- 
setter, and many others equally worthy of 
honorable mention. How the mere repeti- 
tion of these names conjures up a now quite 
forgotten picture of a phase of business life 
in our city, which was a vitally integral 
constituent of our daily affairs ! 

No section of Philadelphia has any more 
valid claim to "first family" pride than the 
old Northern Liberties district. It is note- 
worthy that the majority of the old convey- 
ancers had their abode and their prosperous 
business in that part of the city. Their 
clients were their conservative, industrious 
and successful neighbors, whose numerous 

3^ 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS 



and extensive real estate transactions kept 
these skilful and experienced practitioners 
constantly occupied. It was frequently a 
matter of inheritance, and the ''good will" 
of an established conveyancing ol^ce was a 
very material and enviable asset. The con- 
veyancer was commonly, too, the depository 
of clients' title papers, wills and other docu- 
ments. In this section, as indeed, through- 
out the city generally, the relation between 
the parties was peculiarly confidential and 
sacred. It bred an exceptionally high type 
of men ; and the prosperity of the corporate 
enterprises which supplanted them was due 
in large measure to the honorable traditions 
which substantially embodied their legacy 
to their successors. 

The establishment of trust companies, of 
which the Fidelity Trust Company was the 
first, was of comparatively speedy effect 
in impairing and ultimately destroying the 

39 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

old established business of conveyancing in 
our city. It had been, up to the period in- 
dicated, a very remunerative and most hon- 
orable occupation. William E. Littleton, an 
excellent lawyer and a conveyancer in high 
repute, was among the earliest in his calling, 
in which he had been very successful, to 
recognize the changing condition of things, 
and to discern the portent to the conveyancer 
it carried with it. He frequently expressed 
his apprehension to me, that the business of 
conveyancing by individuals, was, under the 
impending new corporate system, certain to 
dwindle and absolutely disappear. As he, 
therefore, graphically put it, he proposed to 
"hedge" betimes, by investing as rapidly as 
his means permitted him, in the stock of the 
new company. Subsequent developments, 
with which we are familiar, but which many 
conservative souls failed to foresee, con- 
clusively afifirmed the shrewdness and wis- 

40 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS 



dom of Mr. Littleton's anticipations. The 
not insignificant contingent who were want- 
ing in such foresight, saw, too late, their 
business slowly and surely depart from them ; 
and more than one unfortunate victim of the 
new dispensation was compelled by the 
pressure of disastrous circumstances, to ac- 
cept clerical positions in the new organiza- 
tions whose creation quickl}^ followed. 

All the elaborate and time-consuming 
labors incident to the taking out of searches 
in the various courts and scattered public 
places of record, the drafting and engross- 
ing of deeds and mortgages and other in- 
struments, were speedily and forever done 
away with, under the system inaugur- 
ated by these new title and trust com- 
panies. In the matter of the preparation of 
deeds and mortgages alone, the introduction 
of the type-writer, an innovation long re- 
sisted, practically, and even after the busi- 

41 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ness was transferred to these corporations, 
caused the art, as it is fitly entitled, of 
engrossing, to become as completely a thing 
of the past as the writing of letters and legal 
documents by hand. Corporation deeds and 
some other formal papers are still, to a 
limited extent, prepared in the ancient way, 
but this only serves to emphasize, by con- 
trast, the departure from the earlier and 
centuries prescribed manner. 

It is not a fanciful or extravagant conjec- 
ture, by the way, that before many years 
elapse, the pen itself will be wholly superseded 
by the typewriter. My individual experience, 
in view of the ease with what at a quite recent 
period, I have myself, personally, substituted 
it for pen and ink, serves to encourage and 
sustain the prediction that at the end of the 
ensuing half-century, there will be in general 
use, devices in the nature of portable ma- 
chines of this character, adapted to all sorts 

42 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS 



of correspondence, business, domestic, and 
personal. It will be an incalculable relief 
from the annoyance and uncertainty that at- 
tends the deciphering of the average distorted 
chirography, and it will tend, — venturing 
again to speak from personal experiment, as 
well as from general observation, — to secure 
clearer and more concise expression. Nearly 
every person systematically or professionally 
engaged in literary work is now employing 
the type-writer ; and it has been abundantly 
demonstrated that, with its help, literary 
composition is accompanied with greater 
facility. Thus, it would seem that the pen, 
even the fountain pen, is ultimately doomed. 
Who can doubt, indeed, viewing the sub- 
ject, not from the empyrean of sentiment but 
from the solid earth of every day fact, that, 
though it be the final evolution of the type- 
writer, it will become the means of communi- 
cation between lovers, "warm from the soul 

43 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

and faithful to its fires," and that on it will 
be wafted their sighs from Indus to the 
Pole. It is within the memory of some, still 
living, that the steel pen, when first employed, 
was considered an unbusinesslike, unsenti- 
mental and unpoetic substitute for the more 
romantic quill ; and the argument to be de- 
duced from this historic fact in behalf of the 
type-writer and its products is too obvious 
to elaborate. 

The praiseworthy conception of the great 
opportunity and inestimable utility of the 
new trust and title institutions was almost 
entirely the inspiration of Nathaniel B. 
Browne, the founder, practically, and first 
President of the Fidelity Trust Company. 
Mr. Browne was a real estate lawyer of ex- 
ceptional ability and had been somewhat 
active in the political field. He was for 
some time, and prior to the incorporation of 
his company, a State Senator from one of 

44 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS 



the Philadelphia districts. The scheme thus 
originated by him, found much encourage- 
ment in its promotion and the reaHzation of 
his progressive ideas, in the numerous defal- 
cations of individual fiduciaries for several 
years prior to the establishment of the 
Fidelity Trust Company. 

With the consequent gradual disappear- 
ance of the conveyancers, upon the estab- 
lishment of the trust companies, an im- 
portant and fairly remunerative branch of 
the business of the legal profession, itself, 
likewise ceased to exist. This was the ex- 
amination of briefs of title. It was, to be 
sure, a practical monopoly in the hands of 
a comparatively small number of capable 
specialists. The principal of these were 
Henry Wharton, Eli Kirk Price, Edward 
Olmsted, Joseph B. Townsend, William 
Henry Rawle, George M. Wharton, and sev- 
eral others not so much sought after by con- 

45 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

veyancers for opinions on titles. Any deed 
would be unhesitatingly accepted with the 
favorable opinion of one of these authori- 
ties ; and a brief of title with such an opin- 
ion annexed to it was an indispensable part 
of the muniments of title. There was an 
extensively prevalent notion in the profes- 
sion, at large, as well as among the laity, 
that the emoluments of this department of 
practice were particularly lucrative. Yet, 
I have learned from a surviving relative 
of one of the leading practitioners in this 
special branch, that this accomplished law- 
yer's annual professional returns never ex- 
ceeded the sum of ten thousand dollars ; 
and were, frequently, much less. It was a 
laborious and most exacting calling, requir- 
ing a phenomenal faculty of unwearying 
scrutiny and a devoted attention to an infin- 
itude of details ; based, too, upon the most 
thorough familiarity with the technically, 

46 



THE OLD CONVEYANCERS 



difficult and abstruse law of real estate and 
its kindred studies. Without qualification 
accordingly, each of the gentlemen named, 
was a veritable mine of the extensive lore 
applicable to the subject of their investiga- 
tions. 



47 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES. 

Somewhat extended opportunities for con- 
sidering the official attitude and demeanor 
of judges on both sides of the Atlantic, 
authorize the observation that there has been 
and continues to exist a peculiar, exceptional, 
and, it may be said, amusing sentiment of 
personal exaltation on the part of our Phila- 
delphia judiciary ; the origin or the justifica- 
tion for which it would be as idle as it is dif- 
ficult to deduce or explain. Of course, the 
judicial magistrate incarnates the majesty of 
the law and justice : and deference and 
homage are of right the indisputable tributes 
to that high majesty ; but these should, in- 
variably, be voluntarily accorded, never pre- 
sumptuously or tyranically exacted. In the 
Philadelphia jurisdiction, however, with but 
rare and isolated instances to the contrary, 

48 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



an arrogant high-aloofness on the part of 
the judges in all their relations with practi- 
tioners is a characteristic which unpleasantly 
and unfavorably individualizes, and radically 
differentiates them from the administrators 
of justice in other sections of our state and 
country, as well as in the english and con- 
tinental courts. 

A wholly different atmosphere is that of 
the english tribunals. For example, the 
english judge courteously and aiTectionately 
addresses counsel as "brethren," and his 
treatment of them is the visible embodiment 
of his language. In such a forum, the ex- 
perienced observer is impressed with the 
conviction that both magistrate and lawyer 
are engaged in equal measure and on a 
common level, in interpreting the law and 
enforcing its mandates. 

Much nearer, and close at hand, in neigh- 
boring jurisdictions in our own state of 

49 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Pennsylvania, and in New Jersey, this auto- 
cratic behavior of the local bench has no 
counterpart ; and in their courts, there is a 
prevalent mutuality of cordial intimacy and 
regard on the part of attorney and judge, 
which effectually suppresses, nay, renders 
impossible, any inclination in a judge to 
treat the lawyer as if he were a subject and 
not an equal. 

A remarkable and inexplicable feature of 
the Philadelphia situation is that the average 
newly elected judge, fresh from daily and 
hourly close identification with his brethren 
at the bar, too often becomes immediately 
infected with this grand lama of Thibet 
contagion, and is, thenceforth, a permanent, 
chronic victim of its virulence. 

The bar of Philadelphia is not altogether 
without reproach for the continuance of 
these unnatural and unnecessary conditions. 
Realizing that copious doses of adulation 

50 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



are, such is the force of habit, eagerly and 
gratefully welcomed by even the most learned 
and efficient magistrates, it has become too 
much of a custom for the speakers at bar 
meetings and similar gatherings, to refer to 
the "great and exalted" judge, and, in gen- 
eral, to indulge in such ascriptions of com- 
pliment and abject praise as are only em- 
ployed by inferiors in their communications 
to superiors. It were uncharitable and un- 
just, perhaps, to assume, in respect of this, 
that in such contingencies, an unworthy and 
selfish purpose to woo and win, at any cost, 
the partiality or especial tavor of the judi- 
ciary, is the potent inspiration for such ex- 
travagance of utterance. It is, rather, with 
greater justice, to be attributed to the habit 
which has been, unconsciously, let it in 
charity be assumed, forced upon the profess- 
ion by the judges themselves. A little 
more courage on the part of the lawyers 

51 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

would have in time prevented tiie develop- 
ment of this judicial pretentiousness, and 
would, now, stimulate the growth and fruition 
of the conviction on the part of our courts, 
of the absolute absurdity of this arbitrary and 
unjustifiable attitude. 

Under existing conditions, however, a 
Philadelphia practitioner would incur the 
danger of proceedings against him for con- 
tempt of court, should he venture to take 
the independent stand of a New Jersey 
lawyer, of which I was a witness, quite 
recently. This prominent and highly es- 
teemed member of that bar had justly 
secured the acquittal of a client charged with 
a crime, which, the proofs showed, had been 
committed out of the state jurisdiction. The 
judge, before whom the case was tried, there- 
upon announced that he would hold the de- 
fendant for a requisition. Counsel forthwith 
and courageously replied : "Your Honor 

52 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



will do nothing of the kind !" and directed 
his cHent to leave the court room. And, that 
was the end of it, so far as that tribunal was 
concerned. 

When the United States Circuit Court of 
Appeals for the Third Circuit was installed 
in the City of Philadelphia some years ago, 
Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the new 
court, and for courts, generally, took occa- 
sion to read a lesson of manners to the 
assembled bar. The most impartial and dis- 
interested hearer of this address must have 
been struck with its want of tact and with its 
unwarranted severity. It was an undigni- 
fied performance, and out of keeping with a 
purely ceremonious occasion. It was a most 
fortunate circumstance, for the event and for 
the profession, that Mr. Wayne MacVeagh 
was present, to speak on behalf of the bar. 
He had come, of course, prepared to present 
his graceful oratorical contribution to an 

53 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

historical event, Mr. MacVeagli is one of 
the most accompUshed thinkers on his feet, 
and his necessarily impromptu reply to this 
unexpected impeachment of the conduct of 
lawyers, was trenchant and vigorous, but 
withal respectful, manly and convincing. 

The isolation so sedulously cultivated by 
too many of our Philadelphia judges does 
in no manner serve to enhance their fitness 
or capacity. In a democratic community 
like our own, the study and intimate know- 
ledge of human nature is an essential equip- 
ment of an efficient magistrate ; and he is 
materially handicapped in the effectual dis- 
charge of his functions, who neglects this 
beneficial study. Especially is this the un- 
toward result when he is transferred to 
another field of public responsibility. There 
is, unfortunately, in the recollection of every 
one, a melancholy illustration of the re- 
sultant disadvantage and prejudice to a 

54 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



good man and learned judge, suddenly 
becoming the executive magistrate of a 
great commonwealth, "cabined, cribbed and 
confined" in the illiberal and narrow-minded 
conceits which a long career upon the 
bench, under the self-imposed, but censur- 
able limitations which, by reason of Phila- 
delphia conditions, hedge and dwarf the 
man that the judge still continues to be. 
'* When men are too much confined to 
professional and faculty habits," said Ed- 
mund Burke, "and as it were inveterate in 
the recurrent employment of that narrow 
circle, they are rather disabled than qualified 
for whatever depends on the knowledge of 
mankind, on experience in mixed afi^airs, on 
a comprehensive connected view of the 
various complicated external and internal 
interests which go to the formation of that 
multifarious thing called a state." 

There comes to mind, in this connection, 

55 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

the case of another Philadelphia judge; a 
man of singular purity of character, and a 
jurist of notable attainments. During a 
pleasant summer spent in his most agree- 
able company on the New England coast, the 
frequent topic of our conversation was the 
characters and characteristics of fellow-mem- 
bers of our bar. I was astounded, chagrined, 
and perplexed to discover that this very ac- 
complished interpreter of the law was, with 
very few exceptions, deplorably ignorant of 
the personality of those officers of his court, 
the practitioners habitually appearing before 
him. Too often, it gave me serious and sad 
concern to find him attributing habits or 
peculiarities, indeed shortcomings and worse, 
to divers of his and my legal brethren of 
which my necessarily more intimate know- 
ledge of them enforced the abiding convict- 
ion that they could not justly be accused. 
In other words, my much esteemed judicial 

56 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



friend was a pitiful prey to most extraordi- 
nary prejudices that had no warrant for their 
existence beyond his own distorted imagina- 
tion. This peculiar and reprehensible state 
of mind could never have possessed this 
otherwise fair and upright minister of the 
law, had he not accustomed himself from 
his early advent on the bench, to that separ- 
ate, distant and exclusive attitude which the 
Philadelphia judiciary have, too long for their 
own good, made the fashion. It was one of 
his chief duties to know his brethren at the 
bar better than he did ; and his neglect of this 
imperative obligation was a blot on his 
magisterial escutcheon, and unavoidably im- 
paired his judicial usefulness. "No judge," 
truthfully observed Dr. Johnson, "can give 
his whole attention to his affairs. No man 
would be a judge, upon the condition of 
being totally a judge." And, as an unques- 
tionable corollary, it may be asserted that a 

57 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

judge does himself and the bar injustice in 
devoting his abundant leisure to fostering 
an extravagant sense of his importance as a 
representative of the law. 

That there are, as already remarked, distin- 
guished instances of unexceptionable judi- 
cial deportment in several members of our 
courts, whose sufficiently dignified but 
considerate attitude is a material contribu- 
tion to that spirit of mutual good fellowship 
which should prevail on the part of judges 
and lawyers, is a circumstance, gratifying 
and commendable as it is, which, after all, 
but serves to emphasize, in the contrast, the 
regrettable shortcomings of the majority. 

It is conceivable that the average judge 
is quite unconscious of the objectionable 
characteristics which have been animad- 
verted upon. However that may be, might 
it not be well for such a judge to modestly 
reflect that in the fulness of his functions, 

58 



PHILADELPHIA JUDGES 



he does but represent, after all, one-twentieth 
of the majesty of local jurisprudence ? Thus 
considered, it is not an overwhelming or 
consuming responsibility ; and in the gen- 
erous division and partition of the common 
burden which the constitution and the statute 
make in this behalf, there is, it is evident to 
the candid and impartial mind, not enough 
left to each participant to warrant the notion 
that a good judge is anything more than 
a much respected public servant. 



59 



CONSTANT AND VICTOR GUILLOU. 
That the prosaic law-firm epoch tends to 
destroy individuality is apparent from the in- 
stances of the Guillous, father and son ; 
each a difficult subject to make a pen pic- 
ture of. To those that knew Victor Guilloii 
well he was the most fascinating of com- 
panions, and with many of the points of an 
excellent lawyer. His father, Constant Guil- 
lou, was a very great all-round lawyer, alert 
and resourceful in every professional emer- 
gency, a discreet and sound adviser, and a 
wonder before juries. His versatility was 
extraordinary. He was a stenographer, he 
did his own printing, he was an excellent 
mechanic, and possessed no slight skill in 
sleight of hand. 

Victor Guillou had many accomplishments, 
but in the earlier day his personality, positive 

60 



CONSTANT AND VICTOR GUILLOU 

though it was, was inevitably overshadowed by 
that of his remarkable parent. Victor Guillou 
had a constitutional aversion to the contests 
of the forum, and although a fluent and bril- 
liantly epigrammatic talker, he was not suffi- 
ciently attracted by juries to become interest- 
ing or convincing. The exacting responsibil- 
ities of a large office practice were more to his 
taste, and he was a wise and conservative coun- 
sellor. Victor Guillou was a Roman Catholic, 
by inheritance only, and he once told of 
Judge W. A. Porter's reply to Victor's ques- 
tion, why he was chosen master, by agree- 
ment of counsel, in a certain litigation be- 
tween two branches of the Presbyterian 
Church. Judge Porter's answer was : "Vic- 
tor, we have gone over the wTiole bar list and 
can find no one with a more virgin mind on 
the subject of religion than yourself, and, 
therefore, consider you exceptionally disin- 
terested." 

6i 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

His father died when Victor Guillou was 
comparatively young. Thrown on his own 
resources, completely, his development was 
marked ; and in every respect, with the ex- 
ception of the conduct of trials, he was his 
distinguished predecessor's worthy successor. 
In the inner circle of his attached friends he 
was an unequalled conversationalist. His 
exquisite humor was spontaneously abundant, 
and seemed to flow from an unfailing spring. 
As a table companion he was quite unsur- 
passed, and he was the very embodiment of 
the true spirit of refined conviviality. It re- 
sembled the high grade wines of which he 
was an appreciative connoisseur, and finer, 
far, in its spirituality than the insincere talk 
of the average post-prandial babbler. His 
character assimilated itself, insome respects, 
to that of Charles Lamb, and particularly in 
his literary predilections and in the matter of 
friendly correspondence. Victor Guillou 

62 



CONSTANT AND VICTOR GUILLOU 

wielded a facile and graceful pen, a quill, 
always, by the same token ; and he was 
especially happy in his short personal notes. 
It is cause for sincere regret that of the vast 
number of these delightful productions, of 
which I was the grateful recipient for twenty 
years or more, but one has been preserved. 
This was written but a few months before his 
death, and which is plainly foreshadowed in 
it. It is as follows : 

1 124 Girard Street, 
March 22, 1903. 
Dear Bob Coxe : 

Yours of Wednesday sent to 
me up here where I have been housed for a 
long dreary week with another bronchial at- 
tack. I have had a hell of a time and 
bothered good Fred Keene to death by 
awakening him in the dead of night to run 
after doctors and things, but he has been an 
angel and don't show the least disgust with 

63 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

me. I am getting along very well and the 
foolish old heart has come back into traces 
again and now trots fairly well. If the rain 
hadn't turned up — or rather turned down — I 
would have gone down to the office to-day 
and dispensed wisdom at reduced rates. I 
remember well the **Chapeau de Paille" and 
damned funny it was, but alack ! and alas ! 
do not mind me of the author. It was a 
''Palais Royal" farce, of course, and was 
done into English by Gilbert, and played at 
the old Chestnut what time Gemmill was on 
deck and called "The Wedding March" and 
funny then too. I wish I could help you 
but I cannot. Do you remember the speech 
of the old "Chef de Police" in "La Boulanger 
a des ecus" of Offenbach? He saith, "Je 
suis, chef de police de cette ville, et je con- 
nais tout ce qui arrive dans cette ville ex- 
cepte le nom de I'amant de ma femme;" — 
that makes me laugh, all alone as I am. 

64 



CONSTANT AND VICTOR GUILLOU 

Come and see a fellow and talk of deaths 
of kings and the dear old days and God be 
with you meanwhile. 

Yours all the time, 

Victor Guillou. 



65 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT. 

I wonder whether the average present day 
judge's stock of patience and philosophy 
would endure the strain of the extraordinary 
diverse and heavy burdens which a great 
magistrate like Oswald Thompson modestly 
bore. There was a typical faithful public 
servant ! Think of his responsibilities as 
common law judge, as chancellor, as an 
orphans' court judge, and as an exponent 
and interpreter of the criminal law. No 
official stenographer and type-writer was 
ever at his disposal. All the laborious clerical 
work which his manifold duties entailed upon 
him was done with his own hands. With 
him, almost invariably, a long day in court 
was followed by a night of arduous labor at 
home. Outside of the halls of justice the 
public saw and knew little of him. He was 

66 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

the victim of a physical deformity which 
frequently occasioned him acute suffering ; 
but this did not interfere with the thorough 
performance of his obHgations. The high- 
est praise that can be accorded him, is com- 
prised in the statement that in his superb 
modesty, he identified himself so completely 
with the law of which he was the minister, 
that the dominant thought of the practition- 
ers before him was of Thompson, the judge, 
rather than of Thompson, the man. I recall 
no judge or similar public official in whom 
the mere personality was more entirely 
merged in the function. Self-effacement like 
this marks the ideal judicial magistrate. It 
was the more praiseworthy in that to the few 
friends that his engrossing and unremitting 
labors permitted him to cultivate and cherish, 
he proved that in general scholarship, in 
genuine and deeply felt interest in public 
affairs, as well as in conversational qualifica- 

67 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

tions, he was fully equipped to shine as bril- 
liantly as the most popular of his fellow 
citizens. 

The memory of another great judge and 
contemporary of Oswald Thompson is simi- 
larly to be cherished for his life-long mani- 
festation of an inflexible purpose to sacrifice 
social allurements to public service. Joseph 
Allison's labors on the bench were no less 
arduous and diversified than were those 
of his distinguished associate, Thompson. 
Judge Allison was especially conspicuous for 
a trait which is more infrequently exhibited 
than is, perhaps, fully realized, and that is a 
faculty of patient, unwearying and attentive 
listening. He was the quietest and least 
demonstrative judge that ever sat in this 
jurisdiction. Absolutely devoid of personal 
or offtcial vanity or conceit and a faithful 
exemplar of the simple life, he was, as it 
seemed to me, the closest approach to the 

68 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

incarnation of justice I ever knew. After 
his well-earned retirement from his judicial 
labors, to live upon the modest competence 
which his economical habits had enabled him 
to set aside from his small salary, he gave to 
me, in a few words, the key to the secret of 
his success as a judge. His language on 
this occasion did not imply that this most 
unpretentious of men had any more elevated 
idea of his life-work than that he had con- 
stantly striven to do his duty. It was rather 
for others to speak of his career as a success- 
ful one. Judge Allison told me, at this 
time, that at the very beginning of his period 
of judicial service he adopted as a control- 
ling principle of conduct that behind every 
lawyer was the client, and that however in- 
differently or however negligentl}^ the client's 
interests were championed, he, the judge, 
would endeavor, as far as was within his 
power, to protect and secure the rights of 

69 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

the client, whose all, in many a case, might 
be at stake. Thus, Judge Allison went on 
to say, he found it incumbent on him, in the 
application of this principle, to subject him- 
self to a discipline of perfect self-control as a 
listener. Those who knew him during the 
many years of his public activity, must re- 
member how admirably he always held him- 
self in hand in this regard. Amiable, con- 
siderate and equable, he was the rarest of 
interrupters. His attention suffered no abate- 
ment of concentration, whether it happened 
to be directed to the dullest or most prolix of 
counsel or of witnesses, or to the intricate 
details of testimony in an important issue, or 
to the ingenious and weighty arguments of 
learned lawyers. This strict self-enforce- 
ment of discipline contributed in large 
measure to make him the impartial judge 
that he was. And Judge Allison's example 
lends strong support to the theory that 

70 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

judges like poets are born, not made ; for 
he came upon the bench with a rather scanty 
equipment as a lawyer. By an accident, 
almost, he was placed upon the bench 
by the tidal wave of ''Know Nothingism," 
which, for a period gratifyingly brief, over- 
whelmed all other political parties. It was 
hardly a profession of partisan faith of which 
an ordinarily trained lawyer should have 
been proud of adopting, or could have 
adopted. It was narrow-minded, visionary, 
and in the highest sense, unpatriotic. Under 
such circumstances, no one was justified in 
anticipating a distinguished future for a 
young judge so apparently handicapped 
.with such bigoted prejudices. Nothing, 
however, in his subsequent career, gave any 
indication of lack of mental breadth or 
spiritual equipoise. Henceforward, he dwelt 
in the elevated and serene atmosphere which, 
as all his numerous published opinions be- 
token, was his constant environment. 



71 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

On the other hand, Judge John Innes 
Clark Hare, with far greater attainments 
than Judge AlHson possessed, was, by no 
means, his equal in judicial essentials. Hare 
was not born a judge. He had, no doubt, a 
greater educational endowment; he was, con- 
spicuously, industrious, upright, and as im- 
partial as his peculiar disposition permitted; 
and he was a judge to whom prejudice was an 
inconceivable human quality. He had, too, 
an enduring sense of the dignity and solem- 
nity of the judicial function. He was the 
personification of high-bred courtesy, 
which becoming attribute never forsook him, 
even in the taxing and trying experiences of 
the criminal court, in which, somewhat late 
in his official existence, it became his duty 
to serve. Nevertheless, it must be admitted 
that it was not his nature to be a good 
listener. Evidence was constantly over- 
looked or unintentionally disregarded, as 

72 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

well as inadvertently misconstrued by him. 
Nor were his conclusions models of judicial 
determination. They were, too often, dis- 
cussions rather than decisions. 

Judge Hare was, however, the most learned 
lawyer that ever administered justice in the 
courts of Philadelphia. His great work on 
the Law of Contracts has an enduringly 
merited celebrity in every country in which 
our system of law prevails. It is a splendid 
contribution to the department of philosophic 
legal commentary and interpretation. 

Judge Hare came upon the bench of the 
old District Court in the early period of his 
professional life, and remained there, the 
guileless gentleman nature had constituted 
him, until the infirmities of advancing years 
rendered retirement necessary. His trans- 
parent simplicity of character, with that noble 
dignity of personal conduct which never for- 
sook him, made it possible for him to exhibit 

73 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

a certain independence, which, in others, 
might have been justly matter for unfavor- 
able criticism. A noteworthy illustration of 
this freedom of action was presented in his 
singular custom of occasionally leaving 
Court, when held in the old District Court 
room at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, 
crossing the street, taking a drink of whiskey 
at a neighboring public bar, and returning 
to his judicial duties. It was done without 
ostentation, and, of course, without any at- 
tempt at concealment. In the saloon, he 
was treated with the unqualified reverence 
and respect which both his position and his 
gentlemanly demeanor unconsciously ex- 
acted; and gossip did not and could not ven- 
ture a breath of unfavorable comment. 

There was a curious development in the 
period of his final cessation from judicial 
labors, for which the Herbert Spencerian in- 
quirers may have a sufficient explanation; in 

74 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

Judge Hare's exclusive preference for light 
literature. Meeting him, as I did, on more 
than one occasion, during this time, at the 
Philadelphia Library, he confessed to me 
that he had become an omnivorous consumer 
of current fiction. 

It was an observation of the late distin- 
guished Henry Wharton that Philadelphia 
voices had undergone an unpleasant change 
in his day and generation. He attributed it 
to various causes, chief of which, in his 
opinion, was the influence of the Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch, with their sharp, nasal utter- 
ance. However this may be, listening to the 
speech of many counsel and of some judges, 
too, in our Philadelphia and in Pennsyl- 
vania Courts, generally, is not, always, an 
agreeable experience; for the average human 
vocal organ, there, seems to indicate that its 
owner is without taste or musical sensibility, 
however eminent and enviable he may be in 

75 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Other professional attributes. Now, of all 
the men of his time, on or off the bench, I 
think that in his delivery Judge Hare had no 
superior. It was refined, melodious, unaf- 
fectedly clear and distinct, always well- 
modulated, never too rapid, and under per- 
fect control. No pleasanter memory can 
be cherished of the departed, than that of 
the individual voice when it is as acceptable 
to the ear of refined taste as was that of Judge 
Hare. With such a recollection it is always 
easy to conjure up a welcome vision of its 
fortunate possessor. 

Judge Hare was a man of singular kind- 
ness of heart. With a majority of the judges 
of the Philadelphia jurisdiction, he held that 
the statutory provision for sentence in crim- 
inal cases is rigidly mandatory; and that, 
consequently, the practice of suspending 
sentence, in particular instances of great 
hardship, is beyond the judicial province. 

76 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

It is related of Judge Hare, that in a case 
tried before him in the Quarter Sessions, in 
which after discovered evidence made it 
clearly apparent to him that the female de- 
fendant had been wrongly convicted, he still 
felt himself compelled to sentence her. How- 
ever, after fixing the term of imprisonment at 
three months, the minimum of punishment 
determined by the act of assembly, he sent 
for the woman's counsel; and, expressing to 
him his sorrow that the law allowed no other 
course, he handed over to counsel the sum of 
ten dollars, with the request that the prisoner 
should be informed that it was transmitted to 
her by the judge by whom she had been 
sentenced. 

On the bench in the Court Common Pleas 
No. 2 of Philadelphia in Judge Hare's time, 
was Joseph T. Pratt, and whom these refer- 
ences to Judge Hare serve to bring forcibly 
to mind, as the sequel to this mention of his 

77 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

now quite, if not altogether forgotten junior, 
will explain. Judge Pratt was born in 
Western New York, whence he enlisted at 
the outbreak of the civil war as a private 
soldier, subsequently serving as a scout with 
the Army of the Potomac. He left the service 
with an excellent record; came to Philadel- 
phia, and obtained a position as prefect in Gi- 
rard College, so that he might have a liveli- 
hood during the study of the law to which he 
applied himself, in the office of Mr. George 
W. Biddle. On coming to the bar, he iden- 
tified himself with the criminal practice. For 
this he had an adequately efifective equipment 
in his impressively sonorous voice, attractive 
presence and great courage. He rapidly 
attained a commanding position in this 
branch of the law, and, before long, became 
actively concerned with local politics. This 
identification with political matters, led to 
his quite unsolicited nomination as a candi- 

78 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

date of the Republican party, for a vacancy 
in the Common Pleas Court No. 2. He was 
elected, and took his seat in this court, of 
which Judge Hare was president judge, and 
Judge James T. Mitchell, the present Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsyl- 
vania, the other associate. Unfortunately 
for Pratt, his practice in the civil courts had 
been very limited; and he was not, either by 
instinct or enforced habit, a general student. 
Beyond this, Pratt was by nature a gladi- 
ator, rather than an umpire. He had, how- 
ever, a quick intelligence, capacity for work, 
and was extremely conscientious. After he 
had been some time on the bench, he ad- 
mitted to me, in the confidence of the close 
intimacy which had long existed between us, 
that the unwonted strain upon him incident 
to judicial work was far more severe than he 
had anticipated. And he told me, also, that 
were it not for the help, kindly and gener- 

79 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ously extended to him by Judge Hare, he 
would have been strongly tempted to return 
to practice. Judge Pratt had taken a resi- 
dence on Locust Street near Seventh, and, 
in compliance with Judge Hare's invitation, 
Pratt spent, for a long period, almost every 
evening with Judge Hare in his office on 
Washington Square, for the purpose of a 
thorough "coaching" by the president 
judge. Pratt most feelingly, gratefully, and 
eloquently spoke of Judge Hare's amiable 
and unselfish efforts to fairly qualify the as- 
sociate judge for his, to him, most onerous 
responsibilities. But, there is reason for 
asserting that the deficiencies inseparable 
from his initial inadequate preparation for a 
civil court, were never to any great degree, 
removed; even with the invaluable assistance 
of so devoted and so capable a tutor. There 
is no doubt, that the admittedly terrible ten- 
sion was too much for even Pratt's strong 

80 



THOMPSON, ALLISON, HARE, PRATT 

constitution. This ultimately broke down, 
while he was still in the very prime of life. 
His comparative failure bears with it an in- 
structively suggestive lesson for every lawyer, 
animated by an ambition for judicial honors, 
who is not certain as to his sufficient quali- 
fications. 



8i 



JOHN CADWALADER 

For profundity of legal lore, John Cadwal- 
ader, for some years, judge of the United 
States District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania, had no contemporary su- 
perior. His very great learning, paradox- 
ical as it may appear, seriously impaired his 
judicial capacity. He was, in fact, often 
blinded by the excess of light he threw upon 
the subject of what may, with propriety, be 
called his lucubrations. In his passionate 
eagerness to be just and fair in his conclu- 
sions, he frequently found it difftcult to de- 
cide a case of paramount importance. In 
the Credit Mobilier cases, he wrote, what he 
designated, a series of interlocutory opinions; 
magnificent legal essays, surely, but they 
were profound, even brilliant, discussions of 
every conceivable legal proposition appli- 

82 



JOHN CADWALADER 



cable to the issue, rather than concise and 
authoritative decisions. One of these inter- 
locutory opinions is, in substance, an ex- 
haustive and correspondingly instructive 
discourse on subrogation; a veritable treatise 
on this abstruse topic, in itself. 

In admiralty proceedings, Judge Cadwal- 
ader was accustomed to avail himself of the 
expert assistance of a retired shipmaster; 
nautical nomenclature being to him an ab- 
solutely sealed book, altogether beyond his 
ability to master. A precedent for this is 
found in the practice of the English admir- 
alty courts. This "assessor" as he is styled, 
was indispensable to Judge Cadwalader, as 
an interpreter and elucidator of maritime 
customs and expressions. 

Mr. John Heysham, a lawyer of some prom- 
inence in the early fifties, and before Mr. 
Cadwalader was appointed to the bench of 
the Federal Court, told this, to some extent, 



83 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

possibly, fanciful story, as illustrative of Mr. 
Cadwalader's extensive legal scholarship 
and his fondness for minute consideration 
of every question. Leaving one of the old 
rovv-of^ces on Chestnut Street, one day, on 
his way to his midday luncheon, Mr. Hey- 
sham was confronted by Mr. Cadwalader. 
Mr. Heysham observed to his learned pro- 
fessional brother, that he, Heysham, had 
just been consulted by a client, the turn- 
buckles of whose house had been surrepti- 
tiously removed; and asked Mr. Cadwalader 
what he thought was the appropriate pro- 
ceeding in vindication of the client's rights. 
Mr. Cadwalader, in his customary kindly 
manner, took Mr.Heysham's arm in his own, 
and proceeded to walk him out Chestnut 
Street, delivering on the way, a learned pre- 
sentation of the law of turn-buckles, begin- 
ning away back in the days of Cro. Eliz. 
and the black letter reports. Continuing 

84 



JOHN CADWALADER 



the stroll around Broad Street to Spruce 
Street, and finally reaching Mr. Cadwalader's 
office in South Fourth Street, Mr. Cadvval- 
ader had reached a period but midway in 
his ambulatory essay. No conclusion had, 
however, been even approached; and the two 
pedestrians parted, with appreciative expres- 
sions on the part of Mr. Heysham. Next day, 
the two lawyers happened to meet again 
under similar circumstances; and the same 
journey on foot was taken, accompanied by 
a resumption of the consideration of the law 
of turn-buckles on the part of the gifted 
Cadwalader. His office was again, in due 
course, reached, modern courts and modern 
expositions of applicable law having been 
exhaustively adverted to. But, alas ! Mr. 
Heysham having missed two midday repasts, 
although inexpressibly impressed and over- 
whelmed by his friend's masterly contribution 
to the law of turn-buckles, was, nevertheless, 



85 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

as much in the dark as to the precise remedy 
to be invoked, so far as any practical assist- 
ance Mr. Cadwalader had contributed, as Mr. 
Heysham was when he casually put the point 
of law to his friend. 

Judge Cadwalader's unusually active and 
suggestive mind made it quite impossible 
for him to conduct proceedings in banc in 
entire accordance with judicial precedent 
and custom. It was his habit to con- 
stantly interrupt counsel in their arguments, 
with discussions of questions and points, 
sometimes, it must be confessed, only inci- 
dentally and remotely connected with the 
particular matter before the Court. The 
prudent and experienced advocate wisely 
permitted the loquacious judge to indulge 
in his predilection to the fullest extent. Any 
attempt at interference by counsel, with this 
protracted participation by the judge in the 
argument, would more than likely seriously 

86 



JOHN CADWALADER 



prejudice him with the Court. It often re- 
sulted, indeed, that a more satisfactory ruling 
was reached through this unique fondness 
of Judge Cadwalader of arguing the matter 
himself, counsel, practically, contributing 
nothing, than had the more usual methods 
been observed and followed. 



87 



GEORGE SHARSWOOD 

It was quite the fashion, among his con- 
temporaries, at the bar, to esteem George 
Sharswood as the ideal judge. Perhaps, 
this generous estimate was somewhat exag- 
gerated. He was, doubtless, the superior, 
in certain essential qualifications of a judicial 
officer, to his associates on the bench; assum- 
ing such qualifications to be familiarity with 
legal principles and decisions. He was a 
patient, even-tempered judge, prompt and 
accurate in his rulings and an attentive 
listener. All his cases were carefully tried 
by him, and his charges to juries were ad- 
mirable and impartial condensations of the 
law and the testimony. Yet, he was neither 
broad nor sympathetic, and he was without 
enthusiasms. The purely technical side of 
the law appeared to have greater attraction to 

88 



GEORGE SHARSWOOD 



him than its comprehensive philosophic side. 
His judgments, as they are to be found in the 
Philadelphia Reports and in the Supreme 
Court decisions are, consequently, however 
ingenious and sound, neither illuminative 
nor profound. The character of mind of 
this, nevertheless, excellent man is well in- 
dicated by the statement once made by him, 
that there were few cases heard by him in 
the Supreme Court in which he could not 
have written a convincing opinion on either 
side. 

Sharswood was the plainest of men, and 
his tastes were correspondingly simple. 
Politically, he was a democrat, and his par- 
tisan bias controlled his rulings in questions 
that arose for determination by his court 
during the civil war, as it did, indeed, those 
of his associates and fellow judges, in other 
tribunals, in this jurisdiction, at least, re- 
publican, as well as those of Sharswood's 



89 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

faith; but he could not be classed with that 
bastard democratic type which abounded in 
the Philadelphia of his day, with its pseudo- 
aristocratic and absurd assumption of social 
and professional superiority. He was thor- 
oughly in sympathy with the real people, 
but had none of the instincts of the dema- 
gogue. On and of^ the bench, this was pal- 
pable. If, as I happen to know, he preferred 
whiskey to champagne, this was one of the 
many indications of the genuine democratic 
spirit which inspired his conduct. 

Sharswood's great popularity was due to 
his unpretentiousness, the amiability that 
chronic physical suffering never diminished; 
to his unvaryingly courteous treatment of 
counsel, whether prominent and successful, 
or otherwise; and, above these sterling at- 
tributes, as the natural outcome of the general 
recognition of them, to a firmly-rooted public 
faith in the conscientiousness and the even 



90 



GEORGE SHARSWOOD 



and exact justice of his rulings. All this 
may be resumed in the statement, in which, 
it is true, no slight commendation is implied, 
that George Sharswood was a good, if not a 
great judge. 



91 



WOMEN LAWYERS 

The female contingent at the Philadelphia 
bar at present is an insignificant fraction of 
the full membership of two thousand, more 
or less. Nothing derogatory to the woman 
lawyer is implied in the observation that she 
has not yet made her definite mark in 
this jurisdiction. Our local conservative 
spirit, still a potent influence in certain direc- 
tions, has had its large share in discouraging 
the entrance of women into the profession. 
Not so many years ago, several of our Phila- 
delphia courts refused, on technical grounds, 
to recognize woman's right to practice. 
This principal barrier having been removed, 
the doors are now open to her; and, if the 
signs of the times are read aright, it will not 
be long before she will be freely availing 
herself of the opportunity. She has been 

92 



WOMEN LAWYERS 



for an extended period a welcome student at 
the Law Department of the University of 
Pennsylvania. 

There is no good reason why a woman 
should not become a lawyer. In the con- 
tentions of the forum incident to jury trials, 
in criminal cases and in divorce issues, espe- 
cially, an innate sense of delicacy may re- 
strain her from appearing. There have, in- 
deed, always, been those of the sterner sex 
whose inclinations or prejudices have kept 
them away from these fields of professional 
utility; while their success in other depart- 
ments has been unquestioned and complete. 
Women physicians have fully overcome op- 
position by their achievements, at no sacrifice 
of delicacy or decorum; notwithstanding the 
fact that there is greater risk of the impair- 
ment of those essentiallv feminine attributes 
in medicine, than in the law. As general 
counsellors, as Orphans' Court practitioners, 

93 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

and in the conduct of equity cases, there can 
be no doubt that properly trained women 
lawyers would be, and, in fact are, as legit- 
imately successful, and in the same propor- 
tion, as their brethren. 

There are, now, some two thousand women 
at the American bar. There have been 
failures, of course, in the ranks of female 
practitioners of law; but the majority of them 
have been those who undertook to make a 
specialty of divorce and criminal assign- 
ments. When they hold to the cleaner and 
more reputable business, they seem to sur- 
vive and flourish. They are, not, as yet, in 
every jurisdiction, accorded fair and cour- 
teous treatment. They are obliged to fight 
their way, and it is, literally, as with men in 
this and other vocations, a survival of the 
fittest. More is apparently, demanded of a 
woman, at this stage of the experiment. She 
is still a novelty as a lawyer, and is expected 
to prove that her calling is sure. 

94 



WOMEN LAWYERS 



In the progressive emancipated West, 
women have attained genuine distinction at 
the bar; and in Denver, Colorado, one of 
the most active lawyers is a woman, Miss 
Mary F. Lathrop, whose position and practice 
might well be the envy of any lawyer. Miss 
Lathrop is an extensively recognized special- 
ist in probate and administrative law ; and, 
recently, an important contested will case 
was decided in her favor, to which result, her 
comprehensive brief in support of her clients' 
contentions, undoubtedly, in very large meas- 
ure contributed. In the essentials of femi- 
ninity, grace of manner and social attractive- 
ness, she easily holds her own in the most 
refined and cultured community ; and the 
very successful career effectually negatives 
the theory that practising law has a tendency 
to unsex a woman. 

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, 
one might be tempted to conclude, reason- 

95 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ing from the enlarged and ofttimes exag- 
gerated sentimentality which is such a con- 
stituent part of female nature, that there were 
inherent difficulties in the way of women's 
making a practical success in the law. 
Every woman, it might be taken for granted, 
would aspire to become a more or less 
picturesque Portia or Nerissa. Still, 
while we have to reckon by the illustrious 
precedent of Mary Somerville, whose en- 
grossing scientific studies and achievements 
lessened in no degree her capacity for the 
practical everyday concerns of life : so that 
she was as good a needlewoman, as devoted 
a mother and as skillful in the kitchen, as any 
other housewife: we can believe that a 
woman's intellectual powers applied to legal 
practice will not interfere with the attention 
which domestic affairs demand ; nor give a 
one-sided aspect to her existence. There 
has been quite recently published a volume 

96 



WOMEN LAWYERS 



containing the biography and essays of a 
Philadelphia woman/'' whose accomplish- 
ments and conquests in unfamiliar and diffi- 
cult fields of scientific inquiry, of which, 
perhaps the most noteworthy relate to chem- 
istry as associated with the development of 
plants, won for her world-wide fame, although 
she died at the early age of forty-seven. 
These extremely learned investigations, and 
her other purely literary work in poetry, 
sketches of travel, and philosophy, did not, 
in any sense, disqualify her for the discharge 
of her household duties ; and if, instead of 
the particular abstruse sciences to which she 
dedicated herself, she had applied her mind 
to the possibly less exacting study of the law, 
there is sufficient reason for believing that 
she would, at least, have been the pro- 
fessional equal of her brother, a successful 
member of the Philadelphia bar, now de- 
*Helen Abbott Michael. 

97 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ceased. Upon the whole, the ancient aversion 
to the higher education of women no longer 
prevails. Our own Bryn Mawr, whose educa- 
tional requirements and standards are more 
advanced than those of any other college for 
for women, turns out as thoroughly accepta- 
ble samples of perfect womanhood as could 
be desired. Some of the fair sex, it is true, 
are only born "to suckle fools and chronicle 
small beer," but, so too, a considerable part 
of mankind are destined from birth to be but 
drones and trifiers. 

The objection that the imperative obli- 
gations of household management forbid a 
woman's concerning herself with extraneous 
matters, is based more upon a theory than 
upon tangible conditions. Let it not be 
overlooked that an integral portion of 
woman's time is devoted to the shops; which, 
indeed, would cease to exist, without the in- 
dispensable female contingent thronging 

98 



WOMEN LAWYERS 



their aisles and corridors. Besides, there is 
a common error in the supposition that the 
average lawyer's duties appropriate every 
hour of a long working day. In the days 
before the blessed advent of the type-writer, 
a great deal more time was necessarily re- 
quired for merely formal matters, than, under 
modern methods and with other modern labor 
saving devices, such as the telephone, is 
now essential. Yet, even in Dr. Johnson's 
more deliberate day, as that observing person 
noted, — and what was then an accurate com- 
mentary is at least, none the less so at the 
present period — : " it is wonderful when a 
calculation is made, how little the mind is 
actually employed in the discharge of any 
profession. The best employed lawyer has 
his mind at work but for a small proportion 
of his time; a great deal of his occupation is 
purely mechanical." 

As long as women are interested in the 

99 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

objects and results of litigation, because of 
the personal or real property rights with 
which they are invested, and as long as 
they are available, competent and mater- 
ially valuable as witnesses in courts and 
legal proceedings, generally, their actual 
presence before courts and juries is indis- 
pensable, and therefore, proper. And the 
issue as to the propriety or unbecomingness 
of their appearance on such occasions, has 
never been raised. What difference can 
there be, therefore, between this unavoid- 
able identification of the sex with legal 
contentions in this unexceptionable capacity, 
and the association of the professional sister- 
hood with the conduct, itself, of litigation.? 



lOO 



FORENSIC ORATORY 

The forensic orator has, obviously, be- 
come a traditional person. In the inaccurate 
and exuberant language of the callow and 
hysterical newspaper reporter, he is now and 
then chronicled as having appeared with 
much credit and glory to himself, in some 
legal contention of more than ordinary no- 
toriety. Impartial criticism, however, feels 
itself, in conscience, compelled to determine 
that the very best of such professional 
achievements no longer attain the high level 
of what was done long since by Erskine, 
Curran, Brougham, Webster, Binney, Pink- 
ney, and the countless others of even com- 
parativel}^ recent times. 

Speaking from personal observation, at 
least, so far as Philadelphia is concerned, 
this style of public speech has been out of 

lOT 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

fashion for over a score of years; and even 
for some time before, there was but a cor- 
poral's guard of those who successfully cul- 
tivated the art of eloquent utterance before 
juries. The late Mr. Justice M. Russell 
Thayer was, it has always seemed to me, our 
most accomplished speaker on such occa- 
sions. There were others, such as Lewis C. 
Cassidy, fervent, dignified, imposing and 
graceful, too; John P. O'Neill, a cultivated 
gentleman with a Trinity College, Dublin, 
degree, a delightfully fluent speaker, gifted 
with a handsome winning presence, possess- 
ing an educated Irishman's thorough com- 
mand of the very best English, and a fascin- 
ating delivery; Theodore Cuyler, from whose 
charmed lips fell, spontaneously, the choicest 
diction it has been my good fortune to hear 
in spoken words; and there were others their 
worthy compeers ; all forgotten as much as 
they. 

I02 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



Yet, Mr. Cuyler not even excepted, Judge 
Thayer, considered as a forensic orator, 
was endowed with greater attainments, es- 
pecially in respect of general scholarship, 
than any of his professional oratorical con- 
temporaries. In the prime of his manhood, 
and of his busy professional career, his 
superb voice, clear, rich, sonorous and most 
musical as it was, his matchless Virginia 
inheritance, conjoined to his fine handsome 
presence, all helped to make him, far and 
away, the closest approach in our day, to 
the old time forensic pleader. His greatest 
achievement in this direction was in his 
defence of Thomas Washington Smith, in- 
dicted and tried about the year 1868 for the 
murder of James Carter, at the St. Lawrence 
Hotel on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. 
Were it not for the melancholy fact that the 
greatest lawyer's fame is as evanescent as 
the summer cloud, I should not hesitate to 



103 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

call Mr. Thayer's summing up at this trial, 
historical. It embodied, I believe, the first 
presentation of the emotional insanity de- 
fence in this country. At all events it had 
never been so cogently urged with such 
wealth of legal learning as by Mr. Thayer on 
this occasion. The essential technical por- 
tion of this great address was of a pattern 
with the rest of Thayer's legal work, abun- 
dant examples of which are found in the 
state and county reports. The distinctly 
oratorical part of this summing up is without 
its superior in the performances in the courts 
of Pennsylvania since the period of its de- 
livery, at least. This apparently partial 
estimate long maintained, has been emphat- 
ically confirmed by the re-perusal of the 
contemporarily printed copy. This recent 
consideration of so splendid an effort sub- 
stantiates the assertion concerning the dis- 
appearance of forensic oratory. Surely, 

104 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



nothing akin to it, is ever heard in our 
present day tribunals. 

It is not forgotten that among Mr. Thayer's 
contemporaries were orators who had ac- 
quired great repute for their nisi prius efforts. 
Conspicuous among these was David Paul 
Brown, who, had, by the way, associated Mr. 
Thayer with himself, as junior counsel in the 
case referred to of Commonwealth vs. Smith. 
However, Mr. Brown had by no means, either 
the legal or general lore of Mr. Thayer. Mr. 
Brown's style of addressing juries, truth to 
tell, was pompous and ponderous. There 
was more of the actor than the forensic orator 
in his performances. I doubt that he ever 
reached a jury through the convictions of its 
members. He had, with a really meagre 
equipment, acquired a popular reputation as 
a great orator, and in his day, the prestige 
accompanying this preposterous estimate of 
him, had, undoubtedly, great influence with 



105 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

juries. Such a theatrical poseur as Brown 
with his dandyfied manners, his conspicu- 
ously displayed gold snuff-box, the elaborate 
costume with which he clothed his bejewelled 
person, and his stilted and deliberate utter- 
ance, might amuse present day audiences 
and juries, but he would neither seriously 
entertain or control. 

Mr. Benjamin Harris Brewster was, with 
justice, entitled to share in the distinction 
which Judge Thayer enjoyed and deserved. 
Brewster had a beautiful voice, the tones of 
which he modulated with exquisite grace, 
and his language betokened the student and 
scholar that he was. His standard was that 
of the best of the great court orators who had 
preceded his period ; and he preserved and 
displayed, on occasion, the best traditions of 
the old school. It was always a delight to 
hear him. Yet, I cannot but reflect that his 
inordinate personal vanity militated against 

io6 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



his complete success as a forensic speaker. 
It was too obvious that he found an intense 
satisfaction in hearing himself talk ; as, per- 
haps, why should he not. Still, this was a 
weakness and a defect ; and because of it, he 
was, too often, tempted to become discursive 
and prolix to a tedious and dreary extent. 
More than one cause in which he was con- 
cerned suffered defeat because of this fault. 
Mr. Brewster was a lawyer of high attain- 
ments in all branches, and he rendered dis- 
tinguished public service as Attorney General 
of Pennsylvania, and as Attorney General of 
the United States under President Arthur. 
Although not directly germane to the sub- 
ject, it is impossible to resist the temptation 
to advert to Mr. Brewster's series of brilliant 
addresses on the occasion of the opening of 
the Pacific Railroad. He was the chosen 
orator of the Congressional Committee. 
As occasional speeches, I recall nothing su- 

107 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

perior. Each effort was a model of its kind. 
While no two were alike, they were, without 
exception, eloquent, sensible, original, phi- 
losophic and appropriate ; and on a high 
patriotic plane. They excited intense na- 
tional interest on their publication in the 
newspapers of the country. I am much 
surprised to find no mention of them what- 
ever in Mr. Savidge's interesting Life of 
Mr. Brewster. 

Daniel Dougherty enjoyed some fairly 
merited distinction, because of his evident 
ambition to perpetuate the glories of foren- 
sic oratory. His salient defect was his super- 
ficiality, the consequence of his inadequate 
scholarship. Mr. Dougherty was not a well- 
trained lawyer. His delightfully genial dis- 
position and his inherited Hibernian fluency, 
as well as his handsome person, were potent 
elements, nevertheless, in securing the sym- 
pathy and favor of the numerous juries be- 

io8 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



fore whom, in the course of a very prosper- 
ous practice, he had occasion to appear. 
During the latter period of his life he was 
much in demand as a popular lecturer in 
various American cities. He was a man of 
high character, sincere and upright in all 
the relations of life. This brief record of his 
career would be incomplete without men- 
tion of his enkindling speech in nominating 
Mr. Cleveland for President, and, as well, of 
his success as a post-prandial speaker. In 
this most difBcult art, Mr. Dougherty was, 
conspicuously, a master. 

Furman Sheppard, a great lawyer in the 
most extended sense of the title, was, as well, 
a most accomplished forensic orator. His 
equipment as such comprised a strikingly 
impressive presence and sonorous voice — 
absolutely indispensable attributes of the 
perfect public speaker — and, as intimated, 
excellent legal abilities, which his splendid 

109 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

intellect made it not difficult for him to foster 
and develop. Mr. Sheppard, thus liberally 
endowed, was, beyond all question, one of 
our foremost District Attorneys. His record 
of efficient administration of the important 
duties of that high office is among the most 
honorable annals of the Philadelphia bar. 

William Henry Rawle only lacked the 
outward personal requirements, physical 
and vocal, of the orator. The gift was in- 
nate. His magnificent effort on behalf of 
the plaintiff in the celebrated St. Mark's 
Church Bell suit, justly created a profound 
and lasting impression. It is to be found in 
the privately printed report of the proceed- 
ing, and richly repays perusal. It abounds 
in skilful expositions of the law ; and in wit, 
eloquence and poetry, in equal measure. 

With a command of graceful speech, an 
attractive presence, a melodious organ, and 
a facility in rapid mental analysis, Frederick 

I lO 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



Carroll Brewster, had his inclinations led 
him in that direction, would have had no 
superior as a court orator. No doubt the 
practical side of professional life appealed to 
him too strongly for him to be tempted to 
excel in oratorical display. He was de- 
void of personal vanity and desire for ap- 
plause, and his victories were the result of 
direct heart to heart talks with juries, rather 
than of eloquent appeals to them. Surely, 
however, he had, of all his contemporaries, 
the essential qualifications in richly abun- 
dant measure ; and which, had he deemed 
it worth the while, would have won for him 
oratorical distinction. Doubtless, with the 
acute and unerring perception which was a 
marked characteristic of his, in all the varied 
concerns of his strenuous life, he realized, 
also that the day of forensic oratory had 
passed. The conditions, public and profes- 
sional, had been undergoing a complete and 

III 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

radical change in his day and generation. 
Greater rapidity in the conduct of causes, 
inseparably incident to the pressure of busi- 
ness, had become an essential feature of the 
administration of justice. It had come to 
pass that the average juryman, however 
great his delight in effective occasional ad- 
dresses, would become impatient at any 
presentation by an advocate of his side of a 
cause that did not confine itself, without 
exuberance of speech, to the material facts 
of the issue to the determination of which 
he was summoned. And this was the con- 
dition of mind of the ordinary auditor. In 
the earlier and more deliberate time, people 
were wont to throng to court rooms to listen 
to favorite speakers, solely for the pleasure of 
hearing them. The sense of cynical humor, 
which is becoming, more and more, a national 
characteristic, has had much to do with thedis- 
continuance of forensic oratory. What would 

112 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



have profoundly impressed our people as late 
as two generations ago, might, now, contrib- 
ute to their amusement ; although it would, 
more likely, rather arouse their impatience 
than entertain them. However this may be, 
there is no question that as a thing of prac- 
tical utility, forensic oratory, whatever effica- 
cious service it may once have rendered, has 
gone, never to return. A strikingly con- 
vincing proof of this view, if any be re- 
quired, is afforded by a well-written paper 
by one of the younger jurymen in the Thaw 
murder trial in New York. This clever 
writer observed that, beyond the furnishing 
of passing, superficial, evanescent entertain- 
ment, the merely oratorical displays of 
counsel had no effect whatever upon the 
jury. The fundamental purpose of each 
member of the jury, to which it rigidly ad- 
hered — the writer, in substance, said — was 
to reach a conclusion upon the material 

"3 



OLD TIME JUDGP:S AND LAWYERS 

facts as controlled by the law given to them 
bv the Court. 

Had Henry Armitt Brown been more ac- 
tively identified with purely professional 
labors, there can be no question that he 
would have effectively revived the best tra- 
ditions of forensic eloquence. He was the 
foremost orator of his day, of which claim 
his posthumously published addresses are 
the amply sufficient proof. None of his 
successors possessed, to the extent that he 
did, the variety and abundance of qualifica- 
tions requisite for the complete orator. The 
vibrant, manly voice, attuned, according to 
need, to perfect modulations, the fascinating 
presence, these — it cannot too often be in- 
sisted upon — indispensable natural gifts, he 
had in richer allowance than any Pennsyl- 
vanian, at least, of his own or subsequent 
times. His public efforts fully speak for 
themselves and challenge comparison with 

114 



FORENSIC ORATORY 



any similar productions. Recalling all this, 
the conviction of all who heard him must be 
emphasized, that Henry Armitt Brown, pre- 
maturely departing as he did at the age of 
thirty-four years, would have been easily chief 
in forensic contests had it been his lot to 
participate in them. 

It would be censurable neglect to omit 
from these memories of accomplished advo- 
cates, enthusiastic mention of the lamented 
Rufus E. Shapley. In the later years of his 
active practice, Mr.Shapley's appearances be- 
fore juries had been practically discontinued. 
His brethren of the present generation were 
thus deprived of the very great delight of 
hearing a consummately brilliant and forci- 
ble forensic gladiator. His imposing ap- 
pearance, his resonant voice, his com- 
plete mastery of expressive English, and his 
alert and acute legal mind, gave him con- 
spicuous and conceded advantage in a jury 

115 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

trial, resulting in some of the most famous 
of nisi prius triumphs. In particular, there 
is remembered his strong and brilliant sum- 
ming up for Mayor Stokley, in a notorious 
but now forgotten action for damages 
brought against that official by a police- 
man. Mr. Shapley's effort on this occasion 
was worthy of any forum. 

Philadelphia orators, outside of the courts, 
still continue to impress and enlighten. 
Hampton L. Carson and James M. Beck, 
happily for us, of our bar and of our times, 
have gained national distinction through 
their most meritorious public performances. 
It is possible that these unexcelled public 
speakers, (so probably, did Henry Armitt 
Brown forecast the situation), have read ac- 
curately, and in time, the signs in the profes- 
sional firmament, and wisely concluded not 
**to give" to courts and juries ''what was 
meant for mankind." 

ii6 



DAVID W. SELLERS 

Among the remarkable men and great 
lawyers it has been my privilege to know, I 
can recall no one more endearingly attractive 
than David W. Sellers. He was, from every 
point of view, a distinctively unique person- 
ality. He was a whole-souled, genuine hu- 
man being, whose instincts were liberal, 
manly and sincere. Meeting with him, 
whether in court, in his busy office, or on 
the public highway, brought with it, as it 
were, the invigoration of a wholesome breeze 
in springtime. To intensify the metaphor, 
the atmosphere of his vigorous presence in- 
sensibly communicated the delightful con- 
tagion of his hearty interest in all that was 
best and most inspiring in the world of men. 
He had such a catholic breadth of view, and 
such an abiding sympathetic concern for the 

117 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

affairs of others, that even in memory, years 
after his keenly regretted departure, there is 
an intense consciousness of his existence, 
still. It seems that it was but yesterday that 
he left us. Such sterling characters do not 
leave this life without leaving an indelibly 
ineffaceable impress on the blessed circle of 
the survivors. Doubtless, it was impossible 
for him to escape repining, and it is more 
than likely that he had his intervals of sad- 
ness and depression. But, manly soul that 
he was, he never "wore his heart upon his 
sleeve for daws to peck at." Seemingly, 
he had himself under such perfect control, 
that you were impelled to the belief, in 
sure reliance, in his case, upon appear- 
ances, that the philosophic acceptance of 
life as a sphere to be only contentedly 
cheerful in, was a fundamental principle with 
him. Mr. Sellers was too candid, too straight- 
forward, despite his courageous maintenance 

ii8 



DAVID W. SELLERS 



of his convictions, in public and in private, 
and too unaffectedly unassuming, to be 
what is known as a popular lawyer. His 
phenomenal endowment in every important 
branch of the law qualified him, with his 
splendid integrity, for public of^ce. Yet, 
beyond an assistant city solicitorship in the 
early part of his professional life, it did not 
fall to his lot to discharge any public func- 
tion. In this regard the community was 
surely a loser. To what extent may be con- 
jectured, in the light of his inestimable ser- 
vices as counsel for the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company; in which distinguished 
employment his triumphs, as betokened by 
the published reports of the numerous liti- 
gations in this behalf, with which he was 
concerned, as the representative of that 
corporation give us the measure of his 
capacity. In the preparation and presen- 
tation of his briefs in the appellate courts, it 

119 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

was his custom to avoid embarrassing those 
tribunals with a multitude or a multiplicity 
of points, confounding and confusing the 
important with the comparatively unimpor- 
tant. Thus it was that he invariably selected 
the salient points of his client's cause, and 
impressively elaborated them; which feature, 
I am confident, is always welcome to willing 
and grateful ears too frequently wearied by 
advocates wanting in the sound judgment 
and intelligent discretion that marked our 
friend's efforts in the manner and direction 
indicated. Here Mr. Sellers, in this wise 
elimination of non-essentials, furnished sub- 
stantial confirmation of the truth of the 
observation of that great jurist, Benjamin 
Robbins Curtis, that the most important 
cause that could ever come before an appel- 
late court might be adequately argued in 
thirty minutes. Not every tyro may presume 
to adopt this venturesome method. Only 

I20 



DAVID W. SELLERS 



with a genius like Mr. Sellers is it possible 
for it to be effectual. 

In the social assemblage of his friends 
Mr. Sellers was, admittedly, quite without a 
peer, with his exuberant spirits and inex- 
haustible fund of rare humor. He was the 
very best of story-tellers. In the relation of 
his numerous anecdotes he displayed great 
tact in avoiding the besetting fault of the 
majority of raconteurs, of too much elabora- 
tion. When Shakspere said that *'a jest's 
prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears, 
never in the tongue of him that tells it," he 
must have had in mind the discreetly con- 
densed story. Of another shortcoming of 
entertainers of this class, Mr. Sellers' innate 
gentlemanly modesty made it impossible for 
him to be accused. There was nothing akin 
to the actor's vanity in his recitals. He was 
as concise as he was clever, and the point 
was palpable when promptly reached. No 

121 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

anti-climax spoiled any of his capital sto- 
ries. Let me record several, from his appa- 
rently inexhaustible budget. 

Mr. Sellers and the Honorable Jeremiah 
S. Black were opposed to each other in the 
argument of a cause before the Dauphin 
County Court at Harrisburg. Upon the 
conclusion of their respective professional 
efiforts, the afternoon being that of a pleasant 
day in the late spring, Judge Black sug- 
gested to Mr. Sellers that, as perhaps Mr. 
Sellers had no particular desire to return to 
dine at the hotel, and in view of the delight- 
ful weather, it might be more agreeable to 
take a stroll about the city. Judge Black 
further proposed that they should, at the end 
of their walk, take their meals at a boarding- 
house which he himself was accustomed to 
patronize when in Harrisburg, on account of 
the excellent cuisine for which the house 
was renowned; and which Judge Black en- 

12 2 



DAVID W. SELLERS 



thusiastically commended. Enticed by the 
double temptation of an afternoon of Judge 
Black's fascinating company and the certain 
prospect of a superior repast afterwards, Mr. 
Sellers gladly consented. The streets of 
Harrisburg had been thoroughly traversed 
by the two pedestrians, and the dinner hour 
having been reached, Mr. Sellers ventured 
to interrupt the brilliant flow of his compan- 
ion's engaging talk, with a suggestion of the 
inner man's needs. Judge Black hesitated 
an instant, looking up one street and down 
another, collected his thoughts, and, in an 
effort to stimulate his memory as to the ex- 
act locality of the boarding-house, remarked: 
** If I remember rightly, it is down this 
street." This thoroughfare was accordingly 
followed for some distance, only to result in 
mutual disappointment. Then said the 
Judge : " I have made a mistake. Now, I 
recall, it is on such a street." Thither 



123 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

therefore, journeyed the confident 
guide and his now wearied and famished 
companion. But, alas ! disappointment was 
again their portion; and Judge Black, per- 
plexed, with a discouraged glance about 
him, at length observed: "Oh! I have 
been confounding places. The house I was 
thinking of is in Baltimore ! " 

In an action of damages against the city 
of Philadelphia for injuries resulting in the 
death of one Christian Weller, occasioned 
by the defective condition of a highway, I 
was counsel for the widow plaintiff. Mr. 
Sellers appeared for the city. There was a 
verdict for the plaintiff and the usual motion 
and reasons for a new trial. What happened 
at this juncture, although no part of the 
record, was told to me by Mr. Sellers, long 
afterward. He was visited at his office, one 
afternoon, by a stranger, a German, who in- 
troduced himself as a friend of the widow. 



124 



DAVID W. SELLERS 



The visitor then unfolded this remarkable 
scheme : Mrs. Weller had an admirer who 
was willing to marry her, if what would practi- 
cally be her marriage portion, namely, the 
amount of the verdict in the suit, was appar- 
ently assured to her. But, as the mutual friend 
proceeded to observe, the ardent suitor had 
heard of the city's attempt to set aside the 
verdict, and the fervor of his wooing had, 
accordingly, sensibly abated. There was 
great danger of the marriage not being 
consummated ; and the practical purpose 
of the friend's call upon the assistant city 
solicitor, was to secure his valuable interven- 
tion against such a dire contingency. And 
this was the ingenious plan which he de- 
tailed : The motion and reasons for a new 
trial should be temporarily taken out of the 
files and erased from the court docket, so that 
the impression might be created that the 
suit was at an end, and the widow certain to 

125 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

get her money from the city. Thus, lured 
into a feeHng of false security, the suitor 
would promptly wed the widow ; and, after 
that, as the mutual friend, in cold blood, 
suggested, the record could be restored to 
its original and proper condition. Needless 
to add, Mr. Sellers declined to be a party to 
such an extraordinary undertaking, and the 
disconsolate and unconsciously dishonest 
negotiator departed. 

Mr. Sellers was wont to repeat, with char- 
acteristic unction, his peculiar experience 
with another visitor, concerning one of the 
many suits for damages tried by Mr. Sellers 
on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company. This action had been brought 
by an individual, Polish by nationality and 
Israelite in faith, and was based upon his 
claim for compensation for his alleged un- 
lawful ejection from a passenger train be- 
cause of his attempting to travel on an 

126 



DAVID W. SELLERS 



"expired" ticket. The plaintiff was repre- 
sented at the trial by a very prominent at- 
torney, justly celebrated, and feared by his 
opponents for his magnetic influence upon 
juries. There was a sufficient defence es- 
tablished, and the railroad company was 
fairly entitled to a verdict. In his summing 
up, however, the ingenious counsel for the 
plaintiff, as Mr Sellers was accustomed to re- 
late, metaphorically waved the American flag 
over the jury, and eloquently and feelingly 
dwelt upon the fact — technically immaterial 
and irrelevant, though, in the latitude that 
is sometimes allowed on such occasions, not 
objected to by Mr. Sellers — that this country 
was the home of the oppressed of all na- 
tions ; that the poor proscribed Jew had 
equal rights with the President ; that (pas- 
sionately beating his breast), he himself, the 
great orator, had been aforetime scorned 
and contemned for his religious opinions ; 

127 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

but, thank God ! that day was past ; and so 
on and so on, in this impassioned strain, 
with the result that the susceptible jury 
brought in a verdict of four hundred dollars 
for the plaintiff. Upon Mr. Sellers' advice, 
notwithstanding the palpable injustice of the 
verdict, the company accepted it. As juries are 
in the main constituted, with the too frequent 
hopeless prejudice against corporations, a 
new trial might, probably, with so skilful and 
plausible an advocate as the plaintiff's coun- 
sel, have resulted in heavier damages. So 
there was a settlement for the amount of the 
verdict and costs ; and the cause was dis- 
missed by Mr. Sellers from his mind. 

Several months after this definite conclu- 
sion of the litigation, there appeared in the 
offtce of Mr. Sellers, an apparent stranger, 
who recalled himself to the lawyer, as the 
victorious plaintiff himself; and he informed 
Mr. Sellers that he desired to talk with him 

12S 



DAVID VV. SELLERS 



about the case. An interview of the very 
peculiar character proposed was, naturally, 
declined by Mr, Sellers. The individual was 
also advised that any discussion of the mat- 
ter would be grossly improper and not to be 
thought of, and that the man's counsel, who 
was easily accessible, was the only one to 
whom he should address himself. But the 
man obstinately persisted in his request, 
despite Mr. Sellers' refusal and rebuke, and 
referred to a highly important document 
which he said he had brought with him, and 
which he wished to submit to Mr. Sellers' in- 
spection. Annoyed beyond endurance by 
the man's importunity, and realizing from 
his imperturbable and determined attitude 
that ordinary methods for securing relief 
from unwelcome callers would be of no avail 
in such an emergency, Mr. Sellers despair- 
ingly consented to take a mere cursory 
glance at the paper, without in any way 

129 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

commenting upon it, and upon the positive 
promise of the man that immediately after 
such silent examination, he would leave the 
office. Thereupon, the mysterious writing 
was, with due solemnity, produced and shown 
to Mr. Sellers. This was, practically, the 
substance of it : 

Adolph Skupinski (let him be so designated) 

To 
Dr. 

i8— 

May — . To professional services 
in the case of Skupinski 
vs. Penna. R. R. Co., $1,000.00 



By amount of verdict 

and costs recovered, 448.50 



To balance due, $541.50 



130 



JOHN DOLMAN 

One of the most interesting of contempor- 
ary practitioners was the late John Dolman. 
His was an extraordinary career, indeed, 
and worthy of an enduring chronicle. He 
was always industriously engaged in his 
professional and public work, during the 
active years of his useful life in Philadelphia: 
and was doubtless, disinclined, chiefly, by 
reason of his genuine unaflfected modesty, to 
jot down his experiences for the benefit of 
those that should follow him. Had he done 
so, we should have, I am sure, another at- 
tractive contribution to that most fascinating 
department of literature, memoirs; and with 
it, rare and delightful entertainment. For 
Mr. Dolman had been by turns, actor, sailor, 
soldier, lawyer, court clerk, and municipal 
legislator. In each of these activities he 
was, indisputably, superior. My early recol- 

131 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

lections of the old days of Wheatley and 
Drew's management of the Arch Street 
Theatre, embrace the sterHng performances 
of Mr. Dolman in lago and other Shaks- 
perian parts, Hawkshaw, the detective, in 
Tom Taylor's "Still Waters Run Deep", and 
is a varied line of comedy, melodrama and 
tragedy. He is vividly before me still, in 
these impersonations. They were meritori- 
ous el][orts,all of them. His reading charmed 
my youthful ears, with its clearness and its 
sonority. He was a leading member of an 
excellent stock company, to which the late 
Mrs. John Drew also belonged; and the 
diversity of parts successfully assumed by 
Mr. Dolman sufficiently attest his versatility. 
He much surprised me by the statement 
made to me a few years before his death, 
about ten years ago, that he had never been 
inside of a theatre since the termination of 
his comparatively brief dramatic career. 

132 



JOHN DOLMAN 



This, he went on to remark, was not because 
of any principle or prejudice in the matter, 
but solely for the reason that his domestic 
and professional duties developed a partiality 
for evenings at home, which completely sup- 
planted any fancy he might originally have 
cherished for the "play." His identification 
with the stage was after all, it appears, but a 
means of providing himself with a livelihood 
when preparing for the legal profession. 
Mr. Dolman came to the Philadelphia bar 
about 1 86 1. Not long after his admission, 
he was appointed to the responsible position 
of court clerk of the old District Court of Phil- 
adelphia county,abolished by the constitution 
of 1873; although he resigned his clerkship 
in consequence of a rapidly growing prac- 
tice, long before the discontinuance of that 
tribunal. Utterly free of anything like 
vanity, he made no claim to being a forensic 
orator; yet his dramatic training was of ef- 

^33 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

fective service in his addresses in court. He 
was invariably impressive and convincing" 
before juries, and his victories were numerous 
and notable. 

I have among my papers the certificate of 
my admission to the District Court during 
Mr. Dolman's term of service as clerk. It 
is all in his own handwriting. His constitu- 
tional thoroughness is exhibited in the beau- 
tiful script of this certificate. It is artistic 
penmanship, indeed; and of which the most 
skilful engrosser would be proud. 

Mr. Dolman was a native of western 
New York state. Prior to the commence- 
ment of the Mexican War, in the spring 
of 1846, he entered the United States Service 
as a marine, and actively assisted in the 
great historic event of the occupation of Cal- 
ifornia by the national forces, symbolized by 
the raising of the flag by Commodore Sloat, 
at San Francisco, July 9, 1846. Subsequently, 

134 



JOHN DOLMAN 



young Dolman enlisted for military service 
in the same war, in several of the movements 
and engagements of which he participated 
as a private soldier. 

For a number of years, while Mr. Dolman 
was one of our busiest and most efficient 
lawyers, he still found time to discharge 
with great credit to himself and with inestima- 
ble advantage to the City of Philadelphia, 
the exacting duties of Select Councilman 
of the First Ward. In the municipal ser- 
vice he displayed the same painstaking and 
intelligent devotion to his work that was 
manifested in his achievements at the bar ; 
and in which service, Mr. Dolman can be 
best portrayed, as being as unpretentious as 
he was conscientious. In large and un- 
stinted measure, these were the predominant 
features of his character. Higher praise 
can be accorded to no man. 



135 



HORATIO HUBBELL 

Horatio Hubbell was a character. The 
arbitrary procrustean adjustment by which 
professional identity is now merged in law- 
firms, with their extensive clerical and other 
business appendages, has forever negatived 
the possibility of the monotony of the law- 
yer's existence being lessened or relieved by 
such individualism as was embodied in Mr. 
Hubbell. Hubbell was a gifted, but eccen- 
tric personage. Of excellent forbears, with 
superior early advantages, socially and edu- 
cationally, life, let it in all charity not be at- 
tempted to determine wherefore, had not 
gone well with him. Possibly, his own thor- 
oughly unpractical nature had its share in 
the untoward result. As the outcome of it 
all, he was, although the owner of a kindly, 
generous, sympathetic heart — and such are 

136 



HORATIO HUBBELL 



the too familiar contradictions and paradoxes 
of our poor human life — the most cross- 
grained, irritable person that ever came be- 
fore a bench of judges. He had, obviously, 
cultivated the art of being disagreeable to 
such an extent, that it was, clearly, a real 
luxury for him to gratify the perverse sec- 
ond nature which had grown into an instinct 
to be uninterruptedly unamiable in his in- 
tercourse with his brethren and with the 
judges. A frequent manifestation of it was 
his savage expression of dissatisfaction, when 
a decision was rendered against him. It 
was not at all in words, but there was a snort 
or a growl which imparted more than the 
most vigorous every-day speech, though 
stenography was inadequate to reproduce it ; 
and even had this been possible, it is doubt- 
ful if the most intolerant and least indulgent 
of judges would have had the heart to have 

137 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

thereby secured material for disciplining the 
surly counsellor for contempt. 

Mr. Hubbell had a fairly good legal mind^ 
though system was no part of his nature. 
As a referee or as master, for which positions 
he was, at times, and all things considered, 
quite properly selected, one looked for, and 
obtained, in the procrastinated end, satisfac- 
tory determinations. Nevertheless, he was 
often the despair of counsel appearing be- 
fore him. He appointed meetings at which 
he capriciously neglected to be present ; and 
his demeanor and methods at such meet- 
ings as he held, would have been amusing 
if they had not been vexatious. His filed 
reports in such references were marvels of 
clerical shortcomings. Among the records 
from the old court offices there is doubtless 
one of those legal curiosities, a type of 
many of its fellows. The testimony and 
the opinion are entirely in Mr. Hubbell's 

138 



HORATIO HUBBELL 



own extraordinary handwriting, a vast 
chaotic mass of hieroglyphic matter, on 
sheets of paper of various shapes, sizes and 
colors, insufficiently paged and regardless 
of numerical sequence, and in divers kinds 
and hues of ink ; all of it tied together in a 
most slovenly fashion, by red tape. Coun- 
sel who had not prudently obtained, in 
time, their own memoranda of the testi- 
mony, would have derived little benefit from 
Mr. Hubbell's undecipherable scrawl. 



139 



MacGREGOR ]. MITCHESON 

There can be no more lawyers like Mac- 
Gregor ]. Mitcheson. Here is indeed a 
vanished type, to which altered conditions 
render a return as impossible, as in the ani- 
mal kingdom, the plesiosaurus. And yet, 
singularly enough, he lived and practiced at 
the bar of Philadelphia, before his fitting 
and appropriate time. He was but an an- 
achronism that, with methods more in accord 
with those of the busy, unconventional, 
unceremonial period of which Theodore 
Roosevelt, that '* viking in a shirt collar," is 
the shining exemplar, would have found more 
honor and acceptance than was vouchsafed 
him, in his more deliberate and severely con- 
ventional day. 

I have been informed that a prominent 
Philadelphia representative on the Supreme 

140 



MACGREGOR J. MITCHESON 



Bench of this State, has said that Mitcheson 
was one of the best lawyers of his epoch. 
This high tribute to Mitcheson's merit is 
justified, if the estimate is based upon his 
combative qualifications. There never was 
an advocate who fought harder, or who 
merged his excessively egotistic personality 
more completely in that of his client. In 
another important sense was he entitled to 
great praise. He had a ready and instinctive 
perception of every essential fact in a case, in 
all its bearings, and a fine gift of memory for 
retaining them, in season and out of season. 
Thus he was able to rely upon his recollec- 
tion rather than his notes, which were only 
taken for prudential reasons, looking to bills 
of exceptions. He was not fond of books ; 
of law books, especially. He had an aver- 
sion, amounting to an idiosyncrasy, to in- 
formation to be gained by himself from the 
printed page. Nevertheless, he was quite 

141 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

an adept in assimilating material knowledge 
thus obtained by others ; and if he did not 
always grasp the particular principle or 
doctrine, in its accuracy or its amplitude, he 
was, and sometimes to an amusing extent, 
adroit in utilizing the information thus vica- 
riously secured, to greater advantage than 
would, under similar conditions, many a 
more technically learned brother. 

MacGregor Mitcheson — it seems like a 
brutal amputation to bisect the sounding 
appellation — was the very incarnation of 
nervous activity. The life contemplative 
was an unknown sphere to him ; and he 
was the most persistent lawyer that ever laid 
siege to courts and juries. Like the pro- 
verbial American, he did not always know 
when he was whipped, in his frantically 
passionate eagerness to win. He would re- 
turn again and again to a hopeless struggle, 
especially with courts in banc, and very often 

142 



MACGREGOR J. MITCHESON 



in tears, too, and genuine ones at that, with 
the desperate energy of a pugiHst. This is, 
after all, the just conception of the advo- 
cate, and which is not, perhaps, as much 
exaggerated, as to more phlegmatic and un- 
partisan natures might appear. ** By their 
fruits ye shall know them ;" and his numer- 
ous professional achievements fully justified 
the frequent eccentric, but never repre- 
hensible, performances by which they were 
secured. 



14: 



GEORGE W. THORN 

There has been no more rapid and com- 
plete change in characteristic features in any 
neighborhood of the City of Philadelphia, 
than that which speedily overcame the re- 
gion comprised in Fifth street, especially be- 
tween Chestnut and Spruce streets. Even 
from colonial days, and until the shifting of 
the legal centre to the vicinity of the City 
Hall, the indicated locality was practically 
surrendered to the profession. It abounded 
in old-fashioned but comfortable law offices, 
occupied by many of the most prominent 
members of the bar, notably, Edward Olm- 
sted, George W. Biddle, William B. Reed, 
Joseph A. Clay, Horatio Gates Jones, Charles 
Ingersoll, Henry M. Dechert, and Rufus E. 
Shapley. Farther north, above Race street, 
was the residence and office of George W. 

144 



GEORGE W. THORN 



Thorn, a sterling character in every sense. 
Grateful memory assists in conjuring up a 
picture of the interior of Mr. Thorn's office. 
It was the counterpart and type of the well- 
equipped and well-conducted professional 
interior of the period. It has wholly gone 
out of fashion, for no conceivable good 
reason. Lawyers now huddle together in 
characterless sky-scrapers, no doubt to the 
delight of those contemporary evolutionists 
who exalt the " group" at the expense of its 
members. Individualism made such law- 
yers as Mr. Thorn possible. Under existing 
conditions, he would simply be impossible. 
Perhaps there will be no division of opinion, 
that herein is cause for genuine regret. 

Mr. Thorn was a bachelor of very simple 
tastes, although he was very fond of good 
music, and was a regular attendant, as a 
stockholder, in the performances in the 
Academy of Music. His household affairs 

145 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

were conducted by an unmarried sister. 
His offices comprised the *' parlors" of his 
plain, but substantial and commodious dwell- 
ing. The walls of these offices were crowded 
with a fine law library, on very simple pine 
shelving. The furniture and general equip- 
ment were as unostentatious as the propri- 
etor himself ; and the whole environment 
had quite a flavor of its own, be- 
speaking, instantly, to the intelligent ob- 
server, the workshop of a practitioner 
profoundly versed in the learning of his 
profession, and an advocate and adviser 
equal to every call upon his varied activities. 
Admittedly, you are duly impressed with a 
sense of the "business" importance of the 
present suite of law offices, but there is lack- 
ing the dignified and purely professional 
character of the class of offices, I endeavor 
to describe. 

The neighborhood of Mr. Thorn's office- 

146 



GEORGE W. THORN 



residence was not socially noteworthy, but 
it had a thoroughly decent and solid North- 
ern Liberties atmosphere of its own ; and 
that signifies much to a genuine Philadel- 
phian ; not, necessarily, the imitative speci- 
men who has dwelt all his life on the ''main 
line," but the citizen whose associations and 
memories go back at least to " consoli- 
dation." In that wholly clean, respectable 
section, where conservative adherence to 
locality, for generations, was a marked and 
commendable attribute of its residents, Mr. 
Thorn was born and passed his life. He 
was as amiable and refined and courteous 
as it is within the power of a man to be ; 
and he went from a brickyard to a law offtce. 
His great natural parts, his excellent ana- 
lytical mind and model character soon qual- 
ified him for the best service at the bar 
which distinguished his career. 

Mr. Thorn was a man of middle stature, 

147 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Spare of form and feature, with a fine intel- 
lectual head, an aquiline nose, a ruddy 
complexion, and the keenest of blue eyes. 
His habitual expression and demeanor un- 
mistakably betokened sincerity, promptness 
and accuracy of apprehension, and unaf- 
fected and spontaneous geniality; in a word, 
mental and moral honesty and vigor of the 
highest class. It would be a very im- 
perfect estimate of Mr. Thorn which neg- 
lected mention of his beautiful modesty. 
He was entirely devoid of vanity. These 
admirable traits did not, however, unfavor- 
ably affect his courage and self-confidence 
in the fulfilment of his obligations as an ad- 
vocate. The wealth of common sense, 
which was his priceless inheritance as a son 
of the people, and his soundness as a law- 
yer, made him the most trustworthy of coun- 
sellors, as they stood him, in efficient stead, 
in his work before courts and juries. A 

148 



GEORGE W. THORN 



convincing illustration of the simple mod- 
esty of his character was exhibited when, 
upon his being proposed as a judicial candi- 
date — and on the bench such a man could 
have had no superior — he confessed to me 
that he contemplated, with fear and trem- 
bling, the assumption of the responsibilities 
incident to a conscientious discharge of 
such a public duty. He would not, there- 
fore, allow his name to be used. A close 
intimacy existed between himself and the 
late Judge Hare, and they were often seen, 
of afternoons, in the saddle, in Fairmount 
Park. 

Personally, with every young lawyer 
whose friendship with Mr. Thorn was of in- 
estimably valuable professional advantage, I 
shall not cease to revere his memory. A 
good man and lawyer is, we know, by the 
world and the community, very quickly for- 
gotten. Yet there is immeasurable comfort 

149 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

in the reflection that his memory actively 
survives with those fortunate ones whose lives 
he has richly benefited. It was my inex- 
pressibly good fortune to frequently spend 
with him the too brief fortnight of a sum- 
mer holiday which he allowed himself, in the 
fascinating sport of sheepshead fishing at 
Long Beach, New Jersey, the oldest resort 
on the coast, and a favorite with Judge Alli- 
son, that superb lawyer Henry S. Hagert, 
David W. Sellers, Thompson Westcott, G. 
Harry Davis, Richard P. White, the most 
formidable jury lawyer of his time, and other 
eminent legal contemporaries. Life has no 
happier retrospect than that which accom- 
panies the recollection of those memorable 
and delightful trips. Day after day, in a 
fishing boat on Tuckerton Bay, I was 
favored by Mr. Thorn's comments on law, 
man and matters. From the overflowing 
storehouse of his splendid memory, he en- 

150 



GEORGE W. THORN 



tertained me, hour upon hour, with the 
graphic and, of course, quite impersonal, re- 
lation of his manifold reminiscences. My 
sole regret is that I was not enough of a 
Boswell or Eckermann to have then and 
there made permanent record of what was 
so worthy of preservation. This excellent 
lawyer and very lovable man lived to a good 
old age, and was continuously engaged in a 
most remunerative practice ; and he was 
thus able to leave to his heirs, a large estate 
wholly, as may be inferred, of his own cre- 
ation. 



151 



EDWARD HOPPER 

One or two samples of the humor of Ed- 
ward Hopper to be found on these pages, 
should not create an impression that he 
was, primarily, a wit. He was, indeed, a 
most amiable man, and of a very cheerful 
disposition; and his genial pleasantry was 
but the outward manifestation of such a 
sunny temperament. His practice was large, 
and correspondingly exacting; and his life 
was, necessarily, a serious one. According 
to his deserts, he stood very high in the pro- 
fession, and he had a goodly share of the 
legal affairs of his brethren in the Society of 
Friends, of which he was a conspicuous and 
consistent member. The period of his pro- 
fessional activity embraced the years imme- 
diately preceding the Civil War, and with a 
few other lawyers, such as George H. Earle, 

152 



EDWARD HOPPER 



William S. Peirce, and Charles Gibbons, he 
was closely identified with the anti-slavery 
movement. The championship of so des- 
perate and so unpopular a cause demanded 
physical, no less than moral courage on the 
part of its advocates. The bar, as a body, 
conservatively gave it the cold shoulder, and 
Mr. Hopper and his associates were, in truth, 
the victims, frequently, of positively uncivil 
treatment at the hands of their brother law- 
yers. In the Passmore Williamson case, 
notably, Mr. Hopper encountered public and 
professional obloquy at every step of that 
historic cause. 

In David Paul Brown's " Forum," there 
is a fac-simile of the clear and sensible 
handwriting of Edward D. Ingraham, con- 
taining this sentiment: " to refute the com- 
mon slander of the handwriting of law- 
yers." Mr. Hopper's own manuscript was, 
likewise, admirably distinct and legible, like 

153 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

that of Joseph B. Townsend, WiUiam B. 
Reed, Judge Sharswood and numerous 
others ; bringing forcibly to mind, Gellert's 
advice to his Leipzig students, reported by 
Goethe, that "a good handwriting led to a 
good style." Mr. Hopper's minutes as the 
Secretary of the Law Association for a num- 
ber of years were, invariably, from his own 
hand, and they bear potent testimony to his 
superior penmanship. In this type-writing 
epoch, it is difficult to say how lawyers write, 
if they write at all. The personally written 
communication has, practically, disappeared. 
In this sense, too, the individual has been 
eliminated by the machine; and in view of its 
certain permanent substitution for old-fash- 
ioned methods, it is plainly apparent that 
the handwriting expert will soon be without 
a vocation. 

A very sufficient proof of Edward Hop- 
per's prominence as a lawyer is afforded in 

154 



EDWARD HOPPER 



the circumstance that his very commodious 
offices on Arch street below Eighth street, 
were always filled with students. And it is 
evidence of his thorough devotion to every 
branch of his calling, that the contingent of 
successful lawyers who were favored by his 
excellent training, has been such a large 
one. Among them are recalled: Michael 
Arnold, William C. Hannis, E. Hunn Han- 
son, George M. Troutman, Joseph R. Rhoads, 
and Ellis D. Williams. 



155 



MINIATURES 

Notwithstanding that to the expert eye, 
no two lawyers are alike, it is, nevertheless, 
difficult to make biographical sketches of 
one's professional brethren, without insensi- 
bly becoming monotonous, despite every ef- 
fort in avoidance. Like those remarkable 
productions to be found on the walls of the 
Law Association, one portrait is very apt to 
look like the other. As to these corporate 
heirlooms, it is to be observed that the 
modern canon accepted by some of the 
most eminent in that branch of art, is, 
that a portrait need not, necessarily, be a 
resemblance, but that it must represent, 
primarily and absolutely, a human be- 
ing. We are told by Messrs. Sargent and 
Chase, for instance, that it will signify 
not, a hundred years hence, whether the 

156 



MINIATURES 



reproduction in oil on canvas of an indi- 
vidual, is a veritable likeness or not. The 
condition that will alone determine its en- 
during merit is that a real, live, mortal person 
confronts us from the frame which confines 
it. Tried by this test, posterity will experi- 
ence no embarrassment, in forming an esti- 
mate of the Law Association's art gallery. 
No impartial contemporary critic, in the 
most indulgent mood, is likely to concede 
that, saving a few illustrious exceptions, 
there is much actual resemblance in these 
portraits; the ''counterfeit presentments" 
are but few in number ; and the vital human 
essence is lamentably lacking in nearly all 
of them. There will be no controversy, in 
the years to come, as to whether any one of 
them was the work of Gilbert Stuart or 
Rembrandt Peale, or of any of the very ca- 
pable portrait painters of our own day, none 

157 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

of whom, it is justly matter for regret, are 
represented in the Law Association. 

From this, what some amiable souls may, 
possibly, esteem a captious digression, it is 
a far cry to some fugitive notes of departed 
brother lawyers, made in the desperate hope 
of preventing their being completely for- 
gotten. 

Lewis Wain Smith, who died nearly a 
quarter of a century ago, after a short, but 
brilliant professional life, was an invalid 
from childhood. With wonderful cour- 
age, he fought his mortal ailment to the 
end; and, handicapped as he was, achieved 
such a success at the bar, that the obituary 
meeting in his honor was presided over by 
Judge Allison, and such eminent lawyers as 
Wayne MacVeagh, Richard L. Ashhurst, 
Hon. William A. Porter, William McMichael, 
William Henry Rawle and Judge Mitchell, 
delivered addresses. These were eloquent 

158 



MINIATURES 



and genuinely merited tributes to an extra- 
ordinary man. Mr. Smith had an unusually 
acute and active mind, quick perception, 
bravery amounting to audacity, at times, in 
one so young — he was but a little beyond 
thirty when he died ; — and he had, also, 
considerable claim to manly beauty of a 
classic type. He was a fluent, impressive 
speaker, and in the brief span of his inter- 
esting life, found time to devote himself to 
political matters, in the midst of the really 
engrossing practice that rapidly fell to his 
most capable care. 

George D. Budd, another phenomenally 
endowed young lawyer, was taken from us, 
betimes, he having scarcely attained his thir- 
tieth year. He had, however, already es- 
tablished for himself an enviably high repu- 
tation. His early success was all the more 
remarkable and praiseworthy, since, in his 
day, the juniors of the bar had not the op- 

159 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

portunities that are now afforded them. As 
it was, Mr. Budd was associated with the 
leaders of his day in some of the most im- 
portant Htigations, and in his arguments he 
held his own with the most experienced col- 
leagues, as well as with the most formidable 
antagonists. Apparently, his premature 
death cut off a career which would have 
equalled in distinction that of the lamented 
Richard C. Dale, who likewise gave promise, 
at the threshold of his professional life, of 
the great future that crowned his life. 

There has never been associated in any 
Philadelphia law office such a constellation 
of gifted men as were the colleagues of that 
very great lawyer, St. George Tucker Camp- 
bell, during the busy decades of the sixties 
and seventies. There were, James E. Gowen, 
of equal force and capacity with his chief, 
but graced with a sweetness of disposition 
that the most untoward emergency did not 

i6o 



MINIATURES 



disturb, and a victim, in the very climax of 
his great usefulness, to the extraordinary 
strain of constant and most laborious devo- 
tion to arduous duties ; James F. Johnston, a 
tremendous legal engine, who likewise, pre- 
maturely broke down under colossal bur- 
dens ; and Edmund A. Mench, also untimely 
called away, on the threshold of a career full 
of auspicious promise to one so able, and so 
uninterruptedly amiable, withal. Thomas 
Hart, Jr., a gentleman of very great ability 
and application, and Alexander Dallas 
Campbell, were the sole survivors of that 
exceptionally busy office. Mr. Hart had, 
as the sequel made evident, an iron consti- 
tution which enabled him to successfully as- 
sume the weight of responsibility which, not 
to speak of other taxing demands, the pro- 
tracted Reading Railroad litigation cast 
upon his most capable shoulders. He was, 
of course, greatly assisted by Mr. A. D. 

i6i 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Campbell, who is affectionately remembered 
by his contemporaries as one of the most 
cheerful souls that ever enlivened the prac- 
tice of the law ; and whose too early death 
was, indeed, an afflicting dispensation. 

Charles Follen Corson, long since dead, 
the victim of an appalling accident, in the 
prime of life, merits an especial tribute from 
me as a lawyer and man. He was as learned 
as he was unpretending. An experience with 
him, which it is very pleasant to recall, sufifices 
to indicate his genuine Christian character. 
In the course of certain litigation, in which 
we were opposed to each other, I received 
from Mr. Corson a letter which exhibited 
unnecessary temper and was, unquestion- 
ably, discourteous. Surprised as I was at 
its tenor, it coming from a gentleman as I 
knew him to be, I deemed it my duty to 
each of us to return the note to him, accom- 
panying it with a courteous intimation that 

162 



MINIATURES 



I was sure that, upon reflection, Mr. Corson 
would regret having written it. Immedi- 
ately upon the receipt of my acknowledg- 
ment of his communication, Mr. Corson 
came to see me and, with tears in his eyes, 
said to me that he had, unfortunately, an in- 
firmity of temper which sometimes got the 
better of him, and begged my forgiveness. 
Of course, there was no further discussion of 
the subject. We shook hands and parted, 
good friends as before, and thenceforward. 
In my attempt to do justice to the mem- 
ory of George W. Thorn, there is a refer- 
ence to some of the peculiar characteristics 
of the old Northern Liberties district, which 
continued to be displayed long after the 
municipal consolidation of 1854. There 
were other good lawyers identified with 
practice in that part of the city, and 
whose comparative distance from the courts 
and public offices did not militate against 



163 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

their success. Robert M. Logan, whose 
office was on Third street near Noble street, 
was one of these lawyers. He was a stately, 
courtly gentleman of the old school, with a 
charm of manner, inseparable from the pos- 
session of a cultivated intellect and an 
exalted character. He enjoyed a good prac- 
tice, among the merchants and manufactur- 
ers of his neighborhood. His type, like 
that of Mr. Thorn's, is forever vanished. 

Seventh street, above Market street, had, 
also, for many years, its legal colony. The 
continued existence of these legal settle- 
ments was due to their being so readily ac- 
cessible to their particular and respective 
clients. Public transportation was not what 
it became later, and all intercourse, in the 
absence of the telephone and the local tele- 
graph, had to be personal and direct. 
Among the active practitioners in this 
neighborhood were John D. Bleight, Wm. 

164 



MINIATURES 



D. Bispham and Nathan H. Sharpless. Mr. 
Sharpless was well remembered even in later 
times ; and it is but a few years since his 
death. He was a clear-headed, studious, 
and industriously busy lawyer. He pursued 
the even tenor of the professional way, and 
was not conspicuous for eccentricity in the 
ordinary walks of life ; and yet, such are the 
contradictions in human nature, he was the 
one Philadelphian, I believe, who, appa- 
rently, in furtherance of a previously formed 
purpose, never visited the Centennial Exhi- 
bition during the six montiis of its continu- 
ance. There was never any reason assigned 
for this voluntary deprivation, for it must 
have been nothing less to this very intelligent 
and far from prejudiced or ascetic man. 
It was it would seem, much the case as that 
of Mr. Wakefield, in Hawthorne's remark- 
able psychological study. The original ca- 



165 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

pricious impulse to absent himself, insensi- 
bly grew until it became irresistible. 

I have always thought that David Paul 
Brown, Jr., whose office was long in the 
classic Fifth street neighborhood, and who 
seemed to have a fair practice, was inevitably 
overshadowed by his more famous orator 
father, David Paul Brown. This should 
have not been so; for he was a far better 
lawyer than his superficial progenitor. They 
were dissimilar in every respect. The son 
was a hardworking lawyer in purely civil 
matters, conscientiously devoted to his com- 
paratively modest clientele. He was a quiet, 
unpretentious man, with much natural grace 
of manner, and a pleasant conversationalist, 
although no orator. 

In the same locality was the office of John 
H. Markland, who. Judge Sharswood was 
accustomed to remark, had no superior in 
legal and general scholarship at the bar, in 

i66 



MINIATURES 



his time. Mr. Markland was not, however, 
an active practitioner, and in consequence, 
was personally known to but very few of his 
fellow lawyers. 

Sir Jonah Harrington, in his "Personal 
Sketches of His Times," relates how he 
came across an aforetime successful Dub- 
lin barrister, habited as a Turk, sitting 
cross-legged, selling dates, in a bazar, in 
Constantinople ; and in one of Hawthorne's 
tales, is a character who had graduated 
from the law into the soap-boiling busi- 
ness. Such versatility was exhibited in 
the instance of William L. Dennis, a 
member of the Philadelphia bar, long ago 
passed away. Dennis began life as a min- 
ister of the Baptist faith, wherein he was 
eminent and popular, but which vocation he 
forsook for the law. Apparently, the serious 
side of the law had no abiding attraction 
for him; and, beyond his grateful, though 



167 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

perfunctory recognition of the frequent man- 
ifestations of judicial consideration in the 
very remunerative "audits" which came to 
him under the old order of things, it is not 
believed that he was at all concerned about 
legal matters. He never argued or tried a 
case. He was much in vogue as a public 
entertainer, and derived a material portion 
of his livelihood, from the delivery of humor- 
ous lectures, of some merit, in the city and 
surrounding country. He was a very curi- 
ous and amusing compound of Thackeray's 
Fred Bayham and the Rev. Charles Honey- 
man. An accurate analysis would, probably, 
have disclosed more of the latter than of the 
redoubtable " F. B." Dennis had a hand- 
some, portly presence, was the soul of good 
nature when things went his way, and was a 
shining light on a convivial occasion. His 
epitaph might rightly read : " He loved the 

1 68 



MINIATURES 



good things of this life and always had 
them." 

The bar of the present time suffered an 
irreparable loss in the death of J. Martin 
Rommel, of whom the highest conceivable 
praise that can be uttered is the indisputable 
assertion that he was quite of the pattern of 
the high class lawyer of the epochs which 
preceded his own. In him, the best and 
most approved traditions were happily ex- 
emplified. It was my privilege to have 
seen much of this accomplished lawyer 
and exemplary citizen, during the closing 
years of his beneficial existence. As an 
opponent, he was extremely skilful and 
an adept in every honorable method of 
warfare. He could have had a judgeship, 
for which position he had rare qualifica- 
tions; but he manfully resisted the temp- 
tation which the honor tendered him pre- 
sented, and he told me that he considered 



169 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

the lawyer's career, on the full tide of which 
he had entered with so much deserved suc- 
cess, was far more attractive a vocation than 
the merging of his individuality as a mem- 
ber of a court. 

Henry T. King, a thoroughly good law- 
yer, although somewhat of a dreamer, and, 
by one of the numerous accidents of local 
politics. City Solicitor for one term, was a 
very handsome person, with a physiognomy 
marvellously resembling the portraits of 
the Saviour. Of this resemblance, those 
who knew Mr. King well, had reason to be- 
lieve that he was abundantly conscious. He 
was an acceptable public offtcial, performing 
his full duty to his municipal client in an 
undemonstrative manner. His abilities were 
more than average, but the personal vanity 
of which he was not entirely devoid, did not 
develop any professional conceit, and it was 
always as agreeable to have him either as 

170 



MINIATURES 



an associate or as an opponent. As intimated, 
he possessed an attractive exterior, the charm 
of which was intensified by his melodious 
voice, and he was at all times scrupulously 
well attired. Mr. King was the author of a 
rather clever volume of reflections on human 
existence and kindred topics, showing the 
writer to have been a real philosopher and 
thinker. The book is entitled **The Egoist," 
and is well worth perusal. 

Charles Buckwalter, a young lawyer, one 
of the many graduates of George W. 
Biddle's office, enjoyed great and deserved 
popularity as a public speaker. He had 
been a diligent student, and would have de- 
veloped into an efficient practitioner. Not 
that he did not identify himself with profes- 
sional work; he was fairly on the high road 
to success, when his early demise suddenly 
removed him from the stage of life. His 
ambition was, however, to be a national leg- 

171 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

islator; and his best energies were unceas- 
ingly devoted to the reaHzation of that most 
honorable purpose, in one so generously 
equipped with the requisite qualifications. 
Had he belonged to the dominant political 
organization, there is no question that his 
desire would have been gratified. Unfortu- 
nately, in this regard, Mr. Buckwalter's un- 
compromising Democracy destroyed even 
the prospect of a possible fusion in his in- 
terest. Could he have gone to Congress, he 
would have distinguished himself, and would 
have been a credit and honor to his na- 
tive city. Philadelphia has had few good 
lawyers at the national capital, and Mr. 
Buckwalter's professional training was of 
the best, and his standard of, excellence in 
the law, as in other fields, was a high one. 
He was of old Pennsylvania stock, having 
been the ninth oldest son in the family 
succession. Mr. Buckwalter dying unmar- 

172 



MINIATURES 



ried when not much beyond his thirtieth 
year, this remarkable series of ancestral co- 
incidences was, of course, at an end. 

The personal intimacy existing between 
preceptor and students so pleasantly set forth 
in Mr. John Samuel's account of Judge Cad- 
walader's office, made it possible for the fame 
of the lawyer with numerous office students, 
to endure for a much longer period after his 
death, than under the new dispensation. 
Thus, the memory of Edward Coppee 
Mitchell, notwithstanding the twenty years 
which have elapsed since his most regretta- 
ble departure from us, still lingers with an 
abiding sweet fragrance in the minds and 
hearts of the host of lawyers whose thorough 
training at his most competent hands, was 
of very material help in the attainment 
of the high positions at the bar so many of 
them already securely hold. In the ripe 
vigor of his maturity, with a heart as young 

173 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

and as sympathetic as when he entered 
upon the common struggle, with cHents and 
friends almost innumerable, there came the 
deplorably premature end. The densely 
crowded old District Court room on the oc- 
casion of the delivery of the beautiful me- 
morial address by Judge Mitchell con- 
clusively indicated the high esteem and affec- 
tionate regard in which Coppee Mitchell 
was held. 

My dear old friend James J. Barclay had 
an office for many years in the Athenaeum 
building on Sixth street. And what a pre- 
posterous pretence of an office it was ! The 
dust of ages, apparently sacred in Mr. Bar- 
clay's eyes, for never would he permit its 
disturbance, covered the myriad pamphlets 
and old documents in red tape, the effete 
text books of an earlier era, the crazy tables 
and chairs, and the carpet that had once a 
pattern, but which age had withered such 

174 



MINIATURES 



infinite variety it may have had. In this 
opaque environment — with the most palpa- 
ble of foxy wigs, a rusty suit and silk hat 
still rustier, but a dignified and cultivated 
gentleman in any garb, however poor and 
plain — Mr. Barclay seemed as cheerful and 
content as the most prosperous attorney in 
the most elaborately furnished suite. He 
was a lawyer by profession, and had been a 
student with one of the great men of his 
youth ; but I am sure he never had a client, 
and he would have been embarrassed, had 
one intruded upon the tomb-like quiet of 
that strange office. It is very certain, how- 
ever, that he would have been courteously 
received ; for Mr. Barclay, like all men 
whose lives are devoted to good works, was 
the kindest-hearted and most unselfishly 
considerate of mortals. The secretaryship 
of the Board of Managers of the House of 
Refuge, was his only ostensible vocation; 

175 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

but he was identified with numerous chari- 
ties, public and private, and the tranquil life 
of this very happy man was spent in efforts 
to benefit his brother man. 

Many years ago, upon an early morning 
walk at old Long Beach, on the New Jersey 
coast, I overtook a quiet, reserved young 
man, with a pleasant Irish accent ; and with 
whom the stroll was agreeably continued. 
In the course of conversation, my compan- 
ion informed me that although he was still 
identified with mercantile business on Mar- 
ket street, Philadelphia, it was his purpose 
to engage in the practice of law, to the prep- 
aration for which he was zealously devoting 
all his spare time. This was my first ac- 
quaintance with Richard P. White, after- 
wards long the most active and the most suc- 
cessful of our 7iisi prills lawyers. There can 
be no doubt that Mr. White tried more causes 
than any of his contemporaries; and a true 

176 



MINIATURES 



history of local jury trials would record in 
his behalf, avast series of brilliant triumphs. 
In the midst of his busy career, Mr. White 
somewhat surprised me with the confes- 
sion, that he never sat down to try a 
case without a feeling of nervousness. 
Yet, upon reflection, there was no good 
reason for surprise. Dr. John Brown, of 
Edinburgh, has finely said that the physician 
should have sympathy as a motive and not 
as an emotion. This is no less true of 
the lawyer. And so, Mr. White's prelimi- 
nary nerve disturbance was, after all, but a 
salutary symptom of the intense conscious- 
ness of his responsibility, which possesses and 
inspires the really capable advocate as he 
enters upon the combat of a jury trial. 
When Mr. White had "warmed up" to his 
case, as he promptly did, he was as fearless 
as he was formidable. He was also a skilful 
sailor, whom it would be scarcely just to put 

177 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

in the merely amateur class; and his per- 
sonal management of his yacht was notable 
for the display of the same intelligence, 
adroitness and courage which won for him 
his countless victories from juries. 

Seated at his desk, in his unpretentious 
office at the corner of Sixth and Walnut 
streets, with no array of students, or im- 
posing office equipment, Henry S. Hagert 
would have justified the conclusion by an 
ordinary observer, that the occupant was 
neither active, ambitious nor successful. 
Never could opinion be more erroneous. 
The simple personal life of Mr. Hagert was re- 
flected in his professional existence. No abler 
lawyer ever added honor to himself or his 
calling. This apparently indifferent person 
was, at all times, promptly and keenly alive 
to every demand upon his diversified activi- 
ties. Absolutely devoid of artificiality or 
affectation, his counsel was unqualified, pos- 

178 



MINIATURES 



itive and clear; and his addresses to juries, as 
well as his arguments to courts, were concise, 
quietly forcible, and attention-commanding. 
He scorned to "seem busier than he was ;" and 
although he had a good, remunerative prac- 
tice, there was nothing in his demeanor that 
bespoke it. It was a splendid manifestation 
of perfect self-control and philosophic poise. 
When Mr. Hagert became District Attorney, 
those who knew his sterling excellence, were 
not surprised at his distinguished career. 
Although he had not at all been concerned 
in litigation in the criminal courts, his great 
abilities speedily served to convince the bar 
and the community that as a public prose- 
cutor, he was an inestimably efficient public 
servant. His record in this important office 
is one of the glorious memories of the Phila- 
delphia bar. 

Simon Sterne, born in Philadelphia, in 
1839, the son of very poor parents, became 

179 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

a member of the Philadelphia bar in i860, 
having been a student of John H. Markland. 
A few years after Mr. Sterne's admission to 
practice, he removed to the city of New 
York, where his professional and public ca- 
reer won for him merited distinction. Al- 
though a busy lawyer, he was a close stu- 
dent of political economy and of public 
questions, generally. He was the author of 
a number of works on these topics. His ex- 
tensive politico-economical library was be- 
queathed by him to the New York Public 
Library. Mr. Sterne was one of the first to 
advocate the adoption of minority represen- 
tation, and some of the most important pro- 
visions of the Interstate Commerce statute 
are largely based upon his suggestions. He 
never held a public elective office ; but he 
served with advantage to the community, 
upon numerous state and national commis- 
sions. At the meeting of the bar of the city 

180 



MINIATURES 



of New York in honor of his memory, in 
1893, Mr. Joseph H. Choate said of Mr. 
Sterne: " His enthusiasm — I might call it 
his intellectual enthusiasm — was a most 
marked trait, and made his life always fresh 
and interesting. It always seemed to me 
that he lived on a higher plane than most 
lawyers. Although his profession absorbed 
very much of his attention, it never absorbed 
his whole energy, which was very great. 
He loved it and labored and succeeded in it, 
but he loved other things better. He was 
always watchful of social movements, in the 
higher sense of the word, being a careful 
and constant student of those things in 
which the welfare of the community was 
involved." A fountain erected in the centre 
of metropolitan traffic, has this inscription : 
"In memory of Simon Sterne, a good 
citizen." 



181 



OFFICIAL ROBES 

The first formal discussion of the subject of 
judicial gowns in this jurisdiction, was had 
at a dinner given in the winter of 1885, at 
Augustin's, on Walnut street, Philadelphia, to 
the judges of the Supreme Court, by a com- 
mittee of the Law Association appointed to 
present the subject to the members of that 
court. Mr. Richard Vaux was chairman of 
the committee, and Chief Justice Mercur was 
the spokesman for the Supreme Court. 
Among other members of the committee, 
including myself, were Messrs. William 
Henry Rawle and Samuel W. Penny packer. 
Mr. Vaux may fairly be considered as the 
father of the judicial gown. It was his 
hobby. He thrust the subject so repeatedly 
and so persistently, upon the attention of the 
Law Association, that the action indicated 

182 



OFFICIAL ROBES 



was finally taken, but with no enthusiasm, 
and mainly to secure relief from Mr. Vaux's 
importunity. There was then no very active 
sentiment in favor of gowns, either among 
lawyers or judges. On the contrary, the 
subject was, generally speaking, often a 
matter of jest. At the dinner mentioned, 
the judges of the Supreme Court desired an 
expression of views on the matter from the 
several members of the committee. Mr. 
Vaux was the first to present his proposition. 
In one 'of his characteristic efforts, with its 
picturesque, peculiar and at times ar- 
chaic English, he elaborated the familiar ar- 
gument that the adoption of gowns — "the 
ermine" he always styled it — would enhance 
the respect of the bar and of the community 
for courts and their proceedings. He was 
followed by Mr. Rawle, who, rather irrele- 
vantly, told of his experiences when travel- 
ing on the English circuit, of the imposing 



183 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ceremonies attendant upon the judges' ar- 
rival at a city, their reception by the gor- 
geously arrayed sheriff and deputies at the 
city gates, the faitfare of the trumpets and 
all the ** pomp and circumstance" incident 
to the occasion ; but there was not a word 
of cogent persuasion in favor of judicial 
robes. Then, much to my surprise, at least, 
the best argument in support of the propo- 
sition of Mr. Vaux, was offered by Mr. Pen- 
nypacker, whose extremely plain and un- 
pretentious tastes — or notions is, perhaps, the 
better word — in the matter of costume itself, 
were obvious and notorious ; and from whom, 
of all men, an urgent insistency that our 
judges should assume the particular gar- 
ment, was least to be looked for. Then, it 
fell to my modest share, in the weighty dis- 
cussion, to present my own more or less 
crude ideas. The opinion was, accordingly, 
ventured, that the abiding esteem of the 

184 



OFFICIAL ROBES 



profession, and the consequent respect of 
the community for the majesty of the law as 
embodied in its courts, might be sufficiently 
and securely maintained and intensified by 
a high standard of judicial demeanor and 
effort. The judge who conducts the pro- 
ceedings directed by him, with propriety and 
dignity, constantly animated by the convic- 
tion that he is the incarnate representative of 
the law he is delegated to administer; who 
instinctively refrains from belittling his posi- 
tion by indulgence in frivolity or unseemly 
pleasantry ; who rigidly restricts his oiftcial 
utterances to the actual needs of the conten- 
tions over which he is the arbiter, and whose 
decisions are habitually lucid, intelligent, 
sound and impartial, requires no adventi- 
tious costume to fortify or emphasize or con- 
firm his decisions. On the other hand, no 
robe of office, however imposing, can be of 
effect to make the performances of an in- 



185 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

competent, unworthy or undignified legal 
magistrate, acceptable to the bar, nor can it 
prevent on the part of the public, an inevi- 
table want of veneration for such a delin- 
quent. 

The twenty years which have elapsed 
since the custom of judicial uniform has 
prevailed in our tribunals, have served to 
emphatically affirm this view. The moral at- 
mosphere of these courts has in no degree 
improved during that period. Even the 
formalists who once claimed that gowns 
would efTect a magisterial transformation akin 
to that foretold in Scripture: " as a vesture 
thou shalt fold them up and they shall be 
changed," must have their doubts. Law- 
yers are not more courteous and respectful, 
nor are audiences better behaved. Certain 
of our judges, conspicuously eminent for 
the extremely decorous discharge of their 
functions, and whose admirable legal attain- 

i86 



OP^FICIAL ROBES 



ments form a becoming background for 
the attractive picture their model official 
service presents, would be equally efficient, 
in every respect, unequipped with gowns. 
There are, and have been, others of their 
brethren, however, whose educational and 
personal disqualifications, or their incurable 
flippancy, — these shortcomings, sometimes, 
hopelessly conjoined — are rendered none the 
less reprehensible, if, indeed, they are not 
made more odious, by the silken gown which 
custom has prescribed for them. In the last 
analysis, it may with confidence, be urged, 
that after all, uniforms serve but the com- 
mon purpose of enforcing discipline. For 
soldiers, sailors and policemen, railway em- 
ployes and others of that class of servants, 
an appropriate and identifying garb is 
clearly an effective end in securing and 
maintaining satisfactory discipline and ser- 
vice. For a judge, however, rightly consid- 



187 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

ered, it is no more necessary, nor is it more 
becoming, than if worn by a president or 
a governor. Justice, be it in candor con- 
fessed, was treated with great indignity, 
when it was inconsiderately pigeon-holed in 
that misfit architectural conglomerate, our 
City Hall. There is some vague talk about 
a separate court house in the future, on the 
Boulevard or somewhere. Until more re- 
spectable provision is made for the courts of 
Philadelphia, than is comprised in the ran- 
dom, happy-go-lucky method of scattering 
them through the murky corridors of the 
public building, — "a mighty maze and all 
without a plan," — it will require more than 
judicial robes to overcome and neutralize 
the unpleasant effect of their present accom- 
modations. These so completely and irre- 
mediably discredit law and justice, that not 
even the gowns can afford relief. 



1 88 



COURT CLERKS 

Among the absolutely ornamental public 
officials, a prothonotary stands conspicuously 
foremost. He continues to be selected by 
the Board of Judges, and conscientiously 
accepts the handsome emoluments of a 
practical sinecure. Under the experienced 
guidance of the thoroughly qualified and 
thoroughly hard worked Chief Clerk, he 
perfunctorily, and semi-occasionally, signs 
such documents as statutory requirements 
render obligatory. As in the case of a 
recent incumbent, he materially assists in 
maintaining the high dignity of his lucra- 
tive function, by wearing in his sanctum 
sanctorum, during his brief office hours, the 
silken robes that invested him on the bench, 
prior to his prothonotaryship. There must, 
naturally, be a head to every department of 

189 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

human activity ; and so with the office of a 
court of record. Only, in this instance, the 
anomaly is presented of the head doing no 
work, literally or metaphorically. 

What would we do without the Chief 
Clerk? asks the appreciatively grateful pro- 
fessional person. How incalculably much 
the comfort, convenience and happiness of 
countless lawyers, living and dead or for- 
gotten, have been increased by the kindness, 
the courtesy, the ever ready practical sug- 
gestions, of such men as Benjamin R. 
Fletcher, of the old District Court, subse- 
quently of the present Common Pleas Court, 
and later, prothonotary of the Supreme and 
Superior Courts ; as Charles B. Roberts, or 
Thomas O. Webb, of the old Common Pleas 
Court! These are the gentlemen to whose 
honored memory portraits should also be 
placed on the walls of the Law Association. 
They have done more for the lawyers of 

190 



COURT CLERKS 



Philadelphia than have many of their breth- 
ren whose, with few exceptions, inartistic 
and unresembling effigies sometimes inter- 
rupt or disagreeably affect our meditations 
and investigations in the law library. The 
public services of each of these clerks, and 
of others of their grade, who happily sur- 
vive, and whom, therefore, it would be in- 
delicate to name, have been conspicuous for 
untiring, conscientious devotion to their 
manifold labors, always accompanied with 
an amiable disposition and temperament 
which no pressure of affairs, however over- 
whelming, affected or diminished. In dear 
old "Benny Fletcher," as he was affection- 
ately nicknamed by the lawyers whose pro- 
fessional paths were daily and hourly made 
smoother by his unselfish ministrations, 
there was in reality manifested the 

" Constant service of the antique world, 
Where service sweat for duty, not for need." 

191 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

The refined technicalities of legal practice 
were far more intricate in his day than they 
are now ; but Fletcher was a richly furnished 
and readily exploited mine of information 
on all, even the most recondite, questions 
of practice; and of^cial kindness and offi- 
cial amiability were never more liberally 
exhibited than by him. He was the per- 
sonification of Christian self-sacrifice; and 
he set us, his inestimably favored contem- 
poraries and beneficiaries, a lesson of patient 
well-doing during his long life of good 
works, that must have left its enduring 
impress. 

To Charles B. Roberts, the Chief Clerk of 
the Common Pleas Courts, for so many 
years, and Mr. Fletcher's successor, the 
same genuinely cordial tribute is due. He 
gracefully bore the great burden of his ex- 
tremely diverse cares, so that the perform- 
ance of duty by him seemed to be a veri- 

192 



COURT CLERKS 



table delight. No inquiry, whether trivial 
or important, no matter how great his occu- 
pation or pre-occupation, whether presented 
by a blundering tyro or by an experienced 
practitioner, ever failed to be accorded 
prompt and civil consideration, and a satis- 
factory response. Undemonstrative prompt- 
itude was a signal characteristic of Mr. 
Roberts. Ambition, when rightly inspired, 
is a cardinal virtue; it can have no more 
commendable manifestation than in the ob- 
vious purpose of such a public servant as 
Mr. Roberts, to give the Commonwealth, the 
courts, and his profession, — for he was a 
lawyer and a good one, — the very best of 
which his exhaustless energy and uncom- 
mon capacity were capable. 

The old Court of Common Pleas of Phil- 
adelphia County, with its multiplicity of 
jurisdictions, necessarily required an exten- 
sive clerical force for its official work. Its 



193 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Chief Clerk, Thomas O. Webb, most agree- 
ably remembered by the older members of 
the bar, conscientiously and faithfully dis- 
charged his varied and exacting functions, 
for many years. He came from the old 
Southwark district, and belonged to a family 
in honorable repute. Mr. Webb was a dap- 
per, little man, surcharged with mental and 
physical activity to a high degree. In pop- 
ular parlance, he "ran the office." Not less 
than by the active practitioners, he was held 
in deservedly high esteem by the judges of 
his court ; and, I recall, particularly, a pleas- 
ant custom of more than one of them, of 
dropping into the prothonotary's of^ce after 
the sessions of the court, for a chat of an 
hour or two, with the intelligent and amiable 
clerk. Judge James R. Ludlow, especially, 
was an almost daily visitor ; and his friendly 
regard for Chief Clerk Webb was, of course, 
abundantly reciprocated by his subordinate. 

194 



COURT CLERKS 



Upon these occasions, members of the bar 
who happened to be present, availed them- 
selves of the opportunity afforded, for unre- 
strained social converse ; and such oft-recur- 
ring and delightful episodes were graphi- 
cally illustrative of the genial professional 
and judicial intercourse which, not so many 
years ago, added an attractive charm to the 
practice of the law. 



'95 



THE RIGHT OF PENNSYLVANIA 
LAWYERS TO PRACTICE IN ALL 
THE STATE COURTS 

Pennsylvania is reprehensibly behind 
many of the other States of the Union in 
the persistent maintenance of the antiquated 
system which refuses a practicing lawyer the 
right to exercise his functions beyond the 
limits of the courts of his place of residence. 
He can, indeed, such is the anomaly, upon 
the observance of certain prescribed regula- 
tions, appear before the Supreme and Su- 
perior Courts, wherever they may be re- 
spectively holding their sessions. He may 
not, however, if he be a Philadelphia lawyer, 
as much as purchase a writ, say, in Mont- 
gomery or Chester county, if he be not, 
also, enrolled as a practitioner in the neigh- 
boring jurisdiction. This might have been 

196 



THE RIGHT OF PENNSYLVANIA LAWYERS 

natural and convenient enough, in the days 
of stages and canals; but it is unreasonable, 
inconvenient and unjust in the telegraph, 
telephone, trolley and railroad epoch. Our 
State Bar Association annually brings to- 
gether a large and influential delegation of 
Pennsylvania lawyers ; and its meetings are 
marked by the most cordial indications of 
unselfish professional brotherhood. It is 
devoutly to be desired that some practical 
outcome of so much good feeling might be 
devised in the shape of suggested action to 
the end of establishing the privilege of uni- 
versal practice throughout the State. 

Obviously, the existing order of things 
had its origin in the provincially jealous at- 
titude of the various local bars. This senti- 
ment, alone, however, could not determine 
the question, as against the plain provisions 
of the Acts of 1885 and 1887, which pro- 
vide for the admission of an attorney of one 

197 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

jurisdiction by another, upon compliance 
with two important requirements, namely, 
the proof of the applicant's admission to 
the Supreme Court, and the presentation of 
a certificate of the presiding judge of his 
district or county, setting forth that such 
applicant is of "reputable professional 
standing and of unobjectionable character." 
In the case of Splane's Petition, decided by 
the Supreme Court in 1888, and recorded in 
123 Pennsylvania State Reports, page 527, 
this seemingly wise, sound and necessary- 
legislation was unfavorably commented on by 
Chief Justice Paxson, in a peculiar opinion. 
This decision, apparently, worked no hard- 
ship or injustice in the particular case; the 
applicant, according to the reported facts, 
having no meritorious standing before the 
court. He was not, actually, in a position to 
avail himself of the provisions of the Act of 
1887; and the lower court's refusal to admit 

198 



THE RIGHT OF PENNSYLVANIA LAWYERS 

him was, therefore, properly sustained. Ac- 
cordingly, it was not really obligatory upon 
the Supreme Court to include, in their 
opinion, a regrettable attack upon a well- 
conceived and beneficial statute. 

Not venturing to brand the statute of 1887 
as unconstitutional, Judge Paxson discreetly 
limits himself to observing that the Court 
"are not willing to concede to the Act the 
full effect claimed for it," inasmuch as the 
admission of attorneys is a judicial and not 
a ministerial act, and, therefore, beyond the 
control of the Legislature. 

That " the Legislature has no judicial 
powers" is an elementary truism. But is 
not the act of Assembly, thus put under the 
ban by the highest court, a proper exercise 
of the prerogative of the law-making body ? 
It imposes no unjust obligation upon the 
local courts in providing, as it does, for the 
convenience of Pennsylvania attorneys at 

199 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

large. It is as unobjectionable as the origi- 
nal statute (of 1834), which invested courts 
of record with power to admit '' competent 
persons of an honest disposition and learned 
in the law." An argument, similar in tenor 
and effect with that of Judge Paxson, might 
have been pressed against this very statute, 
contending that it was an attempt to control 
the courts, in its designation of the essential 
qualifications of attorneys. 

The Act of 1834 was a universally ac- 
cepted instance of the power of the Legis- 
lature to establish a general rule as to the 
requirements of admission. The Act of 
1887, strictly following in the same line, 
only amplifies these requirements, without 
definitely changing their character. No 
more than in the first statute, is there any 
injustice or disrespect implied in the terms 
of the later act, in its amplification of re- 
quirements for admission. That the origi- 

200 



THE RIGHT OF PENNSYLVANIA LAWYERS 

nal act uses the language "the courts shall 
have the power to admit," and that the sub- 
sequent law employs the expression, "any 
attorney or counsellor shall be admitted," 
does not compel the conclusion that one is 
more objectionably mandatory than the 
other. 

An integral portion of the opinion of 
the Supreme Court in the Splane case may 
be quoted as an evidence of their inadequate 
consideration of the subject. Say the 
Court, through the Chief Justice, in conclu- 
sion: "It [the law of 1887] is as unwise 
as it is illegal. It is an imperative command 
to admit any person to practice law upon 
complying with certain specified conditions. 
Yet between the time when the applicant 
has obtained his certificate of good charac- 
ter from the judge of the district where he 
last resided and practiced law, and the pre- 
sentation of the same to the court which he 

201 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 



seeks to enter, he may have committed 
some act which would render him an unfit 
person to practice law, or even to associate 
with gentlemen." 

This characterization of the law of 1887 
is not at all justified by its language. This 
statute expressly provides, in phraseology 
which could not be more explicit or une- 
quivocal, that the certificate of the presiding 
judge of the applicant's district or county 
must set forth a favorable contemporary re- 
port of the applicant's standing and char- 
acter. A "stale" certificate would not be 
warranted by this law, and the refusal to 
honor it by the court in which the applica- 
tion for admission might be made, would be 
right and proper, and, in no sense, in disre- 
gard of the statute. 

The Act of 1887 is not as much an inva- 
sion of the court's prerogative, as is this ex- 
trajudicial interference by the Supreme 



202 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Court with the rights of Pennsylvania law- 
yers. The Legislature, substantially adopt- 
ing as a precedent, the statute of 1834, has 
said, by the later act, that a Pennsylvania 
lawyer — and that title properly belongs to 
every member of the bar of the highest tri- 
bunal of the State — shall have the right to 
practice in every subordinate court in the 
State, under certain specified conditions. 
In this enactment it has but followed, too, 
the legislation of other States in this regard. 
Practically, the experience of the courts of 
these sister States affords no ground for the 
gloomy anticipations of Judge Pax son. 
While our own statute was inspired and jus- 
tified by the legislative and judicial prece- 
dents of other States, it is, of itself, a proper 
and desirable exercise of legislative author- 
ity, in that it provides for uniformity of 
practice in our courts. A just appreciation 
of the Act of 1887 finds in it, only, a com- 

«03 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

mendable purpose to assist these courts, as 
well as to legitimately advance the standard 
and extend the privileges of the legal pro- 
fession. 



204 



A PENNSYLVANIA PRINCIPALITY 

The romance of history has never been 
much exploited in Pennsylvania, notwith- 
standing its wealth of available material. 
It should all be rescued, betimes, else hope- 
less oblivion will overwhelm it forever. 
There are abundant episodes of absorbing 
interest in the early annals of the Common- 
wealth, and few more entertainingly unique 
than that, the particular scene of which was 
the locality where Philipsburg, in Centre 
County, now stands. This comparatively 
modern lumber and mining town on the 
Tyrone and Clearfield Branch of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, takes its name from one 
Hardman Philips, a famous personage in his 
day, and the protagonist of a remarkable 
drama. 

Philips was an Englishman by birth, who, 

205 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

trustworthy contemporary report af- 
firmed, had been obHged, in early manhood, 
to emigrate to this country, about the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century. It was, 
however, neither asserted nor implied that 
his involuntary residence here was the con- 
sequence of the commission of any crime 
by him. It was the prevalent belief that 
either domestic disagreements or family 
troubles had compelled the permanent 
change of domicile. As it was, Philips, who 
was a gentleman by inheritance and educa- 
tion, brought with him considerable means. 
Almost immediately after his arrival in the 
United States, he purchased a large tract of 
land, part of which, as intimated, is now the 
site of Philipsburg. He erected a substan- 
tial and commodious stone mansion house 
on the commanding side of the mountain, 
overlooking the present town. This edifice, 
of agreeable proportions, is still intact, in ex- 

206 



A PENNSYLVANIA PRINCIPALITY 

cellent condition, and is the thoroughly 
comfortable home of his successors in the 
title, although not his descendants. 

All the appurtenances and incidents of an 
old-country landed estate, including farm- 
buildings, tenantry, imported high-grade 
stock of all kinds, and extensive agricul- 
ture, were, in the course of a few years, of 
effect, under Mr. Philips' intelligent and 
masterful management, to transform the 
wilderness into the semblance of an impos- 
ing manorial seat. 

In those earlier days of infrequent, limited 
and defective methods of transportation and 
communication, this section of Pennsylva- 
nia did, by no means, partake of the homo- 
geneous character with which railroads, tele- 
graphs, telephones, daily newspapers and con- 
stant mails have since invested every part of 
the State. In the light of the primitive con- 
ditions thus denoted, it was not at all a dififi- 

207 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

cult undertaking for Hardman Philips to 
establish and maintain, as he practically did, 
on his great domain, what was, in substance, 
an imperuim in hnperio within the borders 
of the so to speak inchoate commonwealth. 
It was his princely pleasure to exercise, but, 
of course, without duly prescribed legal 
warrant, the functions of an autocratic suze- 
rain over the territory thus secured by him, 
and the village communities that became its 
inhabitants. If not exactly the arbitrary 
dispenser of life and death to the scattered 
residents of this secluded and remote region, 
he, at least, asserted, and with success, as 
the sequel showed, his right to act as umpire 
in every dispute; and he was, generally, ac- 
cepted as the ultimate authority in all the 
concerns of these, his actual subjects. The 
fear and respect, felt and accorded in equal 
degree by these people for their soi-disant 
lord paramount, were the outcome of his 

208 



A PENNSYLVANIA PRINCIPALITY 

imperious temperament, not less than of the 
wealth which was a potent instrument in the 
gratification of his passion for rule. 

His means, his education, and his social 
graces fully qualified Philips to act the host. 
The stranger, therefore, whose manners jus- 
tified it, invariably received hospitable treat- 
ment. It is a particularly noteworthy cir- 
cumstance that the judges of the Supreme 
Court on their protracted and wearisome 
journeys to and from Pittsburgh, were accus- 
tomed to make a sojourn of some duration 
at the Philips mansion ; and, no doubt, 
among the unpublished correspondence of 
some of these judicial visitors, there can be 
found appreciative comments upon the 
kindly and bountiful cheer that distinguished 
the occasional appearances of these honor- 
able guests of the homestead. 

No more convincing illustration of the 
absolutism that characterized Mr. Philips' 

209 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

sway over the land, can be adduced than the 
fact, which appears to be undisputed, that 
in his arrogant and exaggerated sense of his 
power, authority and importance as a great 
landed proprietor, he, at last, seriously con- 
templated the establishment by law of a sep- 
arate dominion of which he should continue 
to be de jure the ruler as he had been de 
facto. Impelled by this essentially feudal 
purpose — what appears, now, to be a wild 
and erratic conceit on his part, but which 
may not have seemed so under the simple 
conditions of the various communities of 
which he was the chief — he did, in all seri- 
ousness, desire the Pennsylvania State Leg- 
islature to pass a statute, drafted in his be- 
half, exclusively investing him with all the 
incidents and powers of the government of 
his little principality. Needless to state that, 
although such a bill was actually introduced, 

2IO 



A PENNSYLVANIA PRINCIPALITY 

no such law is to be found in the records of 
legislation. 

The more recent and more familiar his- 
tory of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 
abounds, indeed, with instances of equally 
autocratic sovereignty in the department of 
practical politics; and there have been — per- 
haps the present tense might here be more 
accurately employed — political leaders as 
indisputably absolute in the entire State as 
was Hardman Philips, within his own ex- 
tensive precincts; but, obviously, no formal 
confirmatory legislative enactment has ever 
been invoked or needed to sustain the high 
prerogative of the political magnate. 



211 



ANECDOTES 

As provided by the Schedule annexed to 
the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1873, the 
then twelve judges of the old District Court 
and Court of Common Pleas, drew lots to 
determine their respective assignments to 
the four new courts created by that Consti- 
tution. It so happened that Hon. William 
S. Peirce drew for Court No. i, and Hon. 
James Lynd was allotted to Court No. 3. 
Not long after this provision of the Sched- 
ule had been fulfilled, in the method pre- 
scribed, these two distinguished jurists met. 
Judge Peirce, who was quite a humorist, joc- 
ularly remarked to Judge Lynd that he had 
been placed, like the grocers did the mack- 
erel. "How is that?" inquired Judge Lynd. 
"Why, the small fish in No. 3," replied 
Pierce. "Ah, yes!" was Lynd's prompt 

212 



ANECDOTES 

and witty retort, ** and the fish with no heads 
in No. I !" 

Edward Hopper always wore the plain 
gray Quaker garb. Thus attired, with a 
slouch hat on his head to match this cos- 
tume, he was accosted by a stranger, a 
fellow-sojourner at a New England seaside 
resort, with the inquiry: "My friend, are 
you a skipper?" *'No," was the paralyzing 
reply, "I am a Hopper!" 

In a suit tried in the old District Court in 
Philadelphia, involving a disputed book ac- 
count for wines and liquors sold and deliv- 
ered, Mr. B. H. Brewster represented the de- 
fendant. In his summing up to the jury, 
he took occasion to dissect and criticize the 
plaintiff's statement of claim. One of the 
items was, so many "gallons of fine French 
brandy at one dollar per gallon." Shaking 

213 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

the bill in the faces of the jurymen, this was 
Mr. Brewster's incisive and vigorous com- 
ment on this item : " Fine French brandy at 
one dollar a gallon ! Great God! Think of 
it! Think of it, your Honor! Fine French 
brandy at one dollar per gallon ! Why, a 
man should have a copper kettle for a 
stomach and a stove-pipe for a throat to 
drink such stuff as that !" 

In the construction of a trolley railway 
upon a main highway in Delaware county, 
Pennsylvania, a flag-stone crossing was, 
without authority, taken up and carted 
away by the contractor. The matter was 
brought to the official attention of a local 
justice of the peace, unlearned in the law, 
to the end of getting his opinion as to 
the proper course to pursue to secure the re- 
turn and replacement of the missing cross- 
ing. After a desperate struggle with the 

214 



ANECDOTES 



antiquated volumes of his meagre library, 
this modern Dogberry gravely announced 
that the offending contractor could be ar- 
rested for '^highway robbery f^ 

Henry M. Phillips, one of the leaders of 
the bar from the period immediately pre- 
ceding the Civil War to many years later, 
was a member of Congress for one or two 
terms, and was also socially pre-eminent and 
popular, both for his genial manners, and 
his distinguished legal ancestry. He told, 
with much enjoyment, the following story. 
His Congressional district had a marked 
Democratic complexion ; so that a nomina- 
tion was equivalent to an election. A dele- 
gation of leading politicians, made up of 
the typical "unwashed" Democracy, called 
upon him to tender him this nomination. 
In doing so, the spokesman informed Mr. 
Phillips, that although there was a strong 

215 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

sentiment in the district in favor of Mr. Ed- 
ward Ingersoll as a candidate, they had con- 
cluded to ignore his claims, because he was 
a "gentleman." And Mr. Phillips was fur- 
ther advised, in the district leader's vernacu- 
lar : " We don't want no gentleman for our 
candidate, and so we have come to you." 

In the old District Court of Philadelphia, 

a suit was being tried before good old Judge 
George M. Stroud, of sainted memory. The 
defence was in the hands of an incompetent 
and conceited attorney ; but as there was, 
practically, no case for the defendant, the 
most capable counsel would have been of 
no avail. Waiting in court for the trial of 
the cause next on the list, sat Mr. John P. 
O'Neill, as plaintifiE's attorney. Much con- 
cerned over the non-appearance of his most 
important witnesses, he was possessed with 
the fear that the speedy termination of the 

216 



ANECDOTES 



pending trial would find him perilously un- 
prepared. At this juncture, the blundering 
advocate referred to, arose to address the 
jury, and, as he had offered no testimony, 
he had, of course, the last speech. As he 
began his remarks, Mr. O'Neill took occa- 
sion to urge the attorney, in a whisper, that 
he make a long speech as a certain means 
of gaining a verdict. Thus encouraged by 
so experienced and apparently disinterested 
a practitioner, the highly flattered lawyer 
started in with great vigor and enthusiasm. 
Constantly interrupted by opposing counsel 
and the justly irritated judge, by reason 
of irrelevant and improper references to 
matters not in evidence, the speaker was 
still prompted by Mr. O'Neill to continue, 
despite the interruptions. *' Keep it up, 
keep it up, you are winning the jury over. 
Keep it up and hammer it at them," said 
the plausible Irish orator. By this time, Mr. 

217 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

O'NeiU's ingenious scheme was beginning 
to exhibit signs of success. His witnesses 
were now coming into court, the danger 
of being forced to trial without them had 
passed, and his seemingly friendly interest 
in his voluble brother was at an end. Lack- 
ing the stimulus of Mr. O'Neill's encour- 
agement, the speaker's flow of words soon 
ceased ; whereupon the indignant judge, in 
a few words, directed the jury to find a ver- 
dict for the plaintiff. The discomfited at- 
torney gathered up his papers and left the 
court room, blissfully unconscious of the fact 
that he had unwittingly saved the day for 
Mr. O'Neill. 

Another member of the Philadelphia bar, 
blessed with more inherited means than in- 
tellectual force or legal attainments, never 
failed to appear at obituary bar meetings, to 
offer his unimpressive and discursive tribute 

218 



ANECDOTES 



to the departed lawyer. He invariably pref- 
aced his remarks with the words: "Mr. 
Chairman, it was my privilege to well know 
the diseased^ In an action in which this 
quaint and clumsy attorney was, himself, 
the plaintiff, he appeared in propria persona^ 
and conducted, unaided, the trial ; even go- 
ing so far as putting himself on the witness 
stand and taking his own testimony. The 
verdict was for the defendant. A new trial 
being refused, there was an appeal to the 
Supreme Court. The appellant's paper 
book, prepared, of course, by himself, con- 
tained a number of unjust and grossly im- 
proper reflections on the conduct of the trial 
judge. After the paper book had been sub- 
jected to the customary cursory inspection 
by the judges, preparatory to the argument, 
there was a brief conference between the 
judges ; when Chief Justice Agnew said : 
"Mr. P., I presume you are, yourself, the 

219 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

author of this paper book." Mr. P., evi- 
dently anticipating a complimentary refer- 
ence to his brief, arose, and, with a pleas- 
ant smile, replied : " I am, your Honor." 
"Well, then," continued the Chief Justice, 
" I take occasion to observe that in the opin- 
ion of my colleagues and myself, in all our 
experience, no such offensive paper book 
has ever been presented to us; and we have 
concluded that we cannot, with propriety, 
hear the argument in this case, until the 
scandalous matter in it is eliminated." The 
offending paper book was then returned to 
the plaintiff attorney, who, as he received 
it, with a smile of beatific self-satisfaction 
irradiating his face, replied : " I thank your 
Honor for your kind suggestion." 

Mr. David W. Sellers once exhibited to 
me a paper which had actually been filed 
by counsel for plaintiff in a suit for dam- 

220 



ANECDOTES 



ages for personal injuries, with the fanmiliar 
caption and endorsement : " Copy of in- 
strument of writing, on which suit is 
brought ;" and which contained, without 
more, save the plaintiff's attorney's signa- 
ture, a photograph of the plaintiff, taken, 
presumably, after the accident. 

William McMichael, at one time United 
States District Attorney for the Eastern Dis- 
trict of Pennsylvania, inherited from his 
father, Morton McMichael, a gift of grace- 
ful public utterance, which justified his 
frequent selection as orator at civic and 
other celebrations. He had a very pleasant 
voice, and his manner was agreeably lack- 
ing in the theatrical display which is the 
bane of many speakers. His address at 
the unveiling of the Lincoln Monument in 
Fairmount Park was an especially eloquent 
effort, and equal to the best ever heard in 

221 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Philadelphia. Mr. McMichael had a fine 
sense of humor, and was accustomed to re- 
late, with great glee, his unfortunate, though 
amusing, experience at the dedication of 
the monument to the deceased members of 
the Artillery Corps, Washington Grays. 
This memorial,* now in Washington Square, 
was originally placed at the corner of Broad 
street and Girard avenue, and was without 
the pedestal that now supports it. Mr. Mc- 
Michael had been designated as the orator 
for the dedicatory ceremonies, and had, of 
course, made the requisite preparation. He 
had, however, seen neither the monument 
nor its design. And thus it came about that, 
giving free rein to his exuberant and patri- 
otic fancy, he pictured to himself an impos- 
ing structure in stone on the usual scale 
and pattern. The peroration of his address 
was, accordingly, in this fashion : " And 
now there will be unveiled and disclosed to 

*Thi3 memorial has at last become a monument. While these pages are 
passing through the press, a soldier's figure is replacing the "hitching post. " 

222 



ANECDOTES 



the blessed light of day, this magnificent 
creation of the sculptor's genius; this proud 
realization of the fervent desires of the sur- 
vivors of these immortal heroes ; this noble 
shaft towering to the empyrean, to tell for 
all time to come our veneration and our af- 
fection for those who died that the nation 
might live." The address being thus con- 
cluded, Mr. McMichael observed, the can- 
vas covering was withdrawn, only to reveal 
to his embarrassed and disappointed glance, 
what he humorously characterized as " a 
miserable little hitching-post." 

J. Buchanan Crosse, a nephew of Ex-Pres- 
ident Buchanan, was one of the most accom- 
plished forgers of his time. His remarkably 
clever and temporarily successful attempt to 
forge his way out of jail, an interesting story 
of itself, is disclosed in the case of Common- 
wealth ex rel. Crosse vs. Holloway, 44 Penn- 

223 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

sylvania Reports. As reported in that vol- 
ume, habeas corpus proceedings in the Su- 
preme Court, despite the able argument of 
his counsel, the late Edward H. Weil, failed 
to secure his release. A peculiar incident 
of these proceedings in the Supreme Court, 
was the universally commented upon phys- 
ical resemblance between the relator, him- 
self, and the then Chief Justice Walter H. 
Lowrie. In complexion, color and quan- 
tity of hair, contour of head and of feat- 
ures, and the color of eyes, they would 
have been, under other circumstances, prac- 
tically undistinguishable. In the light of 
Crosse's extraordinary achievements in his 
special field of crime, it is fair to assume 
that his intellectual provision was on a par 
with that of the Chief Justice ; so that, on 
the moral side, only, was there a discrepancy. 

As late as the Centennial year, 1876, it 

224 



ANECDOTES 



would have been almost a breach of profes- 
sional decorum for a lawyer in Philadelphia 
to be without a green baize curtain on a 
brass rod at his office window, as well as to 
have this office elsewhere than on the first 
floor. There was considerable consternation 
and unfavorable comment, when Daniel 
Dougherty and E. Hunn Hanson courage- 
ously ventured to the second floor, at Sev- 
enth and Walnut streets. 

Unquestionably, the most unique interior 
in the way of an old-fashioned law-office was 
that of Colonel Charles ]. Biddle, on San- 
som street above Seventh. Colonel Biddle 
had some odd and inexplicable notion about 
the upper stratum of air in a room ; for his 
private desk was placed on the top of the 
large office table. His accustomed seat at 
this desk was reached by a series of steps 
extending from the floor to the table top. 
No doubt, many others, with myself, were 



225 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

astounded when first confronting this appa- 
rition in green spectacles inspecting the vis- 
itor from his elevated "coign of vantage." 

When District Attorney William B. Mann 
resided at the corner of Fifth and Green 
streets, he was accustomed to take the Sixth 
street cars on his way to his office. One 
morning, he discovered that he had left his 
watch and chain under his pillow, and so 
observed to a friend at his side in the street 
car. Later in the day, a person represent- 
ing himself to be a court officer, called 
at Colonel Mann's residence with a turkey, 
which the putative messenger stated had 
been sent by Colonel Mann, with instruc- 
tions to bring Colonel Mann's watch to him. 
The watch and chain were duly delivered to 
the messenger ; but they never reached their 
owner. 

Crime, like history, of which it is a part, 

226 



ANECDOTES 



repeats itself ; for the identical story is told 
by John Timbs, in his interesting collection 
of anecdotes about lawyers, doctors and 
clergymen. Sir John Sylvester, Recorder of 
London, while trying a man charged with 
petty larceny, at the Old Bailey, happened 
to remark, aloud, that he had forgotten to 
bring his watch with him. The accused be- 
ing acquitted for want of evidence, went, 
with the Recorder's love, to Lady Sylvester, 
and requested that she would immediately 
send his watch to him by a court officer 
whom he had ordered to fetch it. The lie 
succeeded, and the thief got the watch. By 
the way, might not the Philadelphia crimi- 
nal have found his inspiration in this pub- 
lished London precedent? 

It is related of a certain rather unscrupu- 
lous attorney, long since deceased, that hav- 
ing deducted from a sum collected a some- 

227 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

what exorbitant fee, amounting to about 
seventy-five per cent, of a rather large claim, 
and upon his client expostulating with 
him against the excessive charge, the con- 
scienceless attorney, with well assumed as- 
perity of manner, took out his check book, 
and hastily drawing a check to his client's 
order for twenty dollars, petulantly re- 
marked: ** Take that, you cormorant!" 

Robert M. Lee, once Recorder of the City 
of Philadelphia, anterior to the Consolida- 
tion Act of 1854, was more of a popular or- 
ator than an experienced or even ordinarily 
trained jurist. His manner, delightfully 
bombastic, was far more important and im- 
pressive than his matter. Upon the trial of a 
cause in which he appeared for the plaintiff, 
it became necessary for him to amend the 
declaration in the case ; no technical advan- 
tage was taken of the privilege accorded Mr. 

228 



ANECDOTES 



Lee, and the court thereupon suggested to 
him to forthwith make the necessary amend- 
ment. To Lee's unpracticed hand this was 
simply an impossible task, in his crass igno- 
rance of the elements of the pleader's craft. 
So, rising with stately dignity, and with a 
graceful and condescending wave of his 
hand to the court, he said: "Your Honor 
will kindly consider it done!" 

At the memorial services of the American 
Philosophical Society upon the death of Dr. 
Daniel G. Brinton, the late Professor A. H. 
Smyth delivered the principal address. As 
befitted the ceremonious event, Mr. Smyth 
had prepared his remarks, including a bio- 
graphical sketch of the deceased. This ad- 
dress was preceded by brief speeches by 
other members of the Society, the last of 
whom was Judge Pennypacker. The Judge's 
peculiar voice, like the late Benjamin Harris 

229 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Brewster's disfigured visage, one soon for- 
gets and ignores, in the attractions of a sunny 
presence, agreeable manner and charming 
conversation. Yet it is peculiar. Following 
]udge Pennypacker, Mr. Smyth, in the 
course of his remarks, went on to observe : 
"He (Dr. Brinton) worked patiently to im- 
prove his style in both his written and spoken 
discourse. With like patience and persist- 
ence, he overcame natural disabilities of 
speech and gave tone and character to a 
voice that was unpleasantly marked by the 
wiry twang of Southern Pennsylvania." 

With the living object lesson before his 
audience, there was an audible expression of 
amusement on their part, at the unintended 
but apt illustration of Dr. Brinton's con- 
quered inheritance of utterance. 

A Philadelphia political club, the greater 
portion of whose members were lawyers, 

230 



ANECDOTES 



and whose meetings were more frequently 
convivial than otherwise, emphasized the 
predominance of its legal contingent in 
the name of an insidious and exhilarating 
beverage. It was happily designated the 
"Sci. fa.," because, in the language of its 
original compounder, "it revived the judg- 
ment." 

A very rough diamond was George W. 
Dedrick ; but there was no doubt as to the 
genuineness of the jewel. He had consid- 
erable success at the Philadelphia bar ; 
which his acute mind and the adroit man- 
agement of his numerous cases before juries 
by this clever man of the people, fully ex- 
plained. He was not an accomplished law- 
yer, but an extremely useful one to his many 
clients. Dedrick burnt the candle at both 
ends ; and possessed as he was with intense 
vitality and a partiality for the convivial oc- 

231 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

casion, his life was strenuous but brief. He 
had a comfortable residence in the old 
North Penn District. Here he gave fre- 
quent entertainments to his brother lawyers. 
He took great delight in inviting the unsus- 
pecting guest to inspect what he called his 
Law Library. This occupied the rear third- 
story room of his capacious house, and con- 
sisted, exclusively, of some half-dozen or 
more barrels of rye whiskey in various stages 
of development. 

Expert testimony in the case of Bergner 
& Engel Brewing Company vs. Clements, 
given quite a number of years since before 
me as master, fully partook of the character 
of burlesque. To test the credibility of a 
witness called by plaintiffs, and adequately 
qualified as an expert, a dozen unlabeled 
bottles, but privately identified, were pro- 
duced by the defense, and the witness was 

232 



ANECDOTES 



desired to specify the contents of each bot- 
tle. Each bottle was opened, and subjected 
by the witness to apparently critical inspec- 
tion, by taste and smell. In no one in- 
stance, however, was his attempt at identify- 
ing the contents of the bottle successful ; for 
the defendant's subsequent proof on this 
point showed that each bottle contained a 
sample of the product of a well-known 
American beer brewer. 

The impecunious law student, like the 
poor, generally, will always be with us. 
His schemes to meet and conquer financial 
emergencies are countless ; but I wonder 
much if, ever, before or after my own pro- 
bationary period in the law, any other stu- 
dent wrote sermons as a precarious means 
of securing subsistence. 

In a picturesque rural churchyard in the 
vicinity of Philadelphia, have, for many 

233 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

years, rested the mortal remains of a cler- 
gyman, who, in simple charity, shall be 
nameless, whose weekly homilies, for a year 
or two, came from my unconsecrated and 
unworthy pen. Sooth to say, they were not 
models of doctrinal elucidation or exegeti- 
cal commentary ; nor were they of the Til- 
lotson or Bossuet or Jeremy Taylor pattern. 
However, my work seemed to be acceptable 
to both parson and people. His satisfaction 
was indicated by the continuance of my em- 
ployment ; and my favorable conclusion as 
to the obviously indulgent congregation, is, 
perhaps, warranted by the inscription on his 
monument in the parish churchyard, and 
which embodies a special tribute to his mer- 
itorious services as a preacher. 

I never had the courage, much less the 
vanity, to desire it, to be present at the deliv- 
ery of a single one of these many efforts of 
mine. I was more than satisfied with the 



234 



ANECDOTES 



substantial compensation of five dollars for 
each of these meagre contributions to eccle- 
siastical literature, as, upon every Friday 
evening, at the old Bolivar restaurant, on 
Chestnut street, the manuscript was deliv- 
ered to my patron in the cloth, to the far 
from unwelcome accompaniment of a tooth- 
some oyster stew. To make a complete 
confession of a delinquency, of which dire 
pecuniary need facilitated the commission, 
material assistance in the preparation of 
these discourses was afforded by a book of 
"Skeleton Sermons," obtained at Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical Book Store, as it was called, 
then on Chestnut street above Thirteenth 
street, in Philadelphia. With the help of 
this invaluable and, to me, indispensable 
little volume, a sort of ** Dunlap's Forms," 
in its way, the fulfilment of my peculiar 
contract was not more difficult than the 
drafting of a will or a deed of settlement 

235 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

from the lawyer's inseparable vade mecum. 

What a substantial precedent, though, for 
those who insist upon extemporaneous efforts 
in the pulpit! 

Mr. Eli K. Price, the framer of the Act of 
1854, consolidating the various districts of 
the county of Philadelphia into the present 
municipal corporation, as well as of the Act 
of 1873, familiarly known in the legal pro- 
fession as the " Price Act," facilitating the 
transfer of decedents' estates, enjoyed a 
large and lucrative real estate practice. His 
prominence and great capacity in this im- 
portant department of the law, occasioned 
his frequent and wise selection as executor 
and trustee. His reputation for the skill and 
ability displayed by him in these positions 
of fiduciary responsibility, with their, oft- 
times, very remunerative commissions, ex- 
tended beyond the ranks of his envious 

236 



ANECDOTES 



brethren at the bar. Accordingly, a shrewd, 
observant and worldly minded mother, con- 
ferring with Mr. Benjamin Harris Brewster 
on the subject of her son's entering his 
office as a student of law, remarked to his 
proposed preceptor that it was not at all her 
desire that the young gentleman should be 
trained in the general principles of the sci- 
ence, but that it was her particular ambition 
that her son should "learn to be an exe^^tor," 
as she pronounced it, "like Mr. Price." 

A citizen of German biith, drawn for jury 
duty in the Court of Quarter Sessions, re- 
quested Judge Craig Biddle to excuse him, 
assigning as his reason that he, the juror, 
" didn't understand good English." "That 
is not a sufficient ground," replied the 
Judge; "you are not likely to hear any of 
it in this place." 

237 



OLD TIME JUDGES AND LAWYERS 

Mr. Edward Hopper, overhearing a pom- 
pous young attorney arguing his cause in an 
exaggerated oratorical way, observed: "how 
much the young man reminds himself of 
Daniel Webster!" 

The trial docket of the Nisi Prius Division 
of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 
which was abolished by the present Consti- 
tion of the State, abounded in actions for 
damages for libel and slander. This was 
due to the fact that there was a current im- 
pression that juries in that tribunal were 
more liberal than those in the District Court. 
It was remarked, in language worthy of 
Dean Swift, that "the court had become a 
hospital for diseased reputations." 



238 



INDEX 



Agnew, Daniel 219 

Allison, Joseph 68, 69, 70, 71, 150, 158 

American Philosophical Society 229 

Anecdotes 205-238 

Anti-Slavery Movement 153 

Arch Street Theatre 132 

Arnold, Michael 155 

Arthur, Chester A 107 

Ashhurst, Richard L 158 

Athenaeum 1 74 

Atlantic City 14 

Attorneys see Pennsylvania Lawyers 

Augustin's Restaurant 182 

Austrian consul at Philadelphia 28 

Austrian minister to the United States. 27, 28 
Austro-Hungary 23, 26 

Barclay, James J 174-176 

Barrington, Sir Jonah 167 

Bartl, Edmund A 26, 27, 36 

239 



Beck, James M 1 16 

Belmont Mansion 9 

Bergner & Engel Brewing Co. z's. Clem- 
ents 232 

Berschine, Franz 23-36 

Biddle, Col. Charles, anecdote of . .225, 226 

Biddle, Craig 237 

Biddle, George W 78, 144, 171 

Binney, Horace loi 

Bispham, William D 164, 165 

Black, Jeremiah S 122-124 

Bleight, John D 164 

Bolivar Restaurant 235 

Bradley, Justice, bad manners of 53 

Brewster, Benjamin Harris 106-108 

anecdotes of 213, 214, 229, 230, 237 

Brewster, Frederick Carroll no, in 

Briefs of Title 45, 46, 47 

Brinton, Dr. Daniel G 229, 230 

Brougham, Lord loi 

Brown, David Paul. . . 105, 106, 166 ; his 

"Forum," 153 

Brown, David Paul, Jr 166 

240 



Brown, Henry Armitt 1 14, 115, 116 

Brown, Dr. John, of Edinburgh 177 

Browne, Nathaniel B 44 

Bryn Mawr College 98 

Buchanan, James 223 

Buckwalter, Charles 1 71-173 

Budd, George D 159, 160 

Burke, Edmund 55 

Cadwalader, John 11, 82-87, 1 73 

Campbell, Alexander Dallas ... 10, 161, 162 

Campbell, St. George Tucker 160 

Cape May 14 

Carson, Hampton L 116 

Carson, J. Hays 38 

Carter, James 103 

Cash, Andrew D 38 

Cassidy, Lewis C 102 

Castle, James H 37 

Catholic Confessional 34, 35 

Chase, William M., (artist) 156 

Choate, Joseph H 181 

City Hall 18, 188 

241 



Clay, Joseph A 144 

Clements, Bergner & Engel Brewing Co. 

ZJS 232 

Clerks of the Courts 189-195 

Cleveland, Grover 109 

Cliques at the Bar 16, 17 

Colborn, Andrew J 29-36 

Colborn & Horn, of Scranton 28 

Commonwealth e:r. re/. Crosse vs. Hollo- 
way 223 

Conveyancers, Old 37-47 

Corson, Charles Pollen 162, 163 

Court Clerks 189-195 

Benjamin R. Fletcher, 190, 191, 192 ; 
Charles B. Roberts, 190, 192, 193 ; 

Thomas O. Webb 190, 194, 195 

Court Dress 182-188 

Coxe, Robert D 63, 182, 183, 184 

writes sermons 233, 234 

Cranford 16, 1 7 

Credit Mobilier 82 

Crosse, ]. Buchanan, forger 223 

Crosse vs. HoUoway 223 

242 



Curran, John Philpot loi 

Cuyler, Theodore 102, 103 

Dale, Richard C 160 

Davis, G. Harry 150 

Dechert, Henry M i44 

Dedrick, George W 231, 232 

Dennis, William N 167-169 

Denver, Colorado 95 

Dickson, Samuel 10 

District Court 73» i33. 190 

Dolman, John 131-135 

in theatrical characterizations, 132, 

133 ; clerk of the district court 133 

Dougherty, Daniel 108, 109, 225 

Dramatic Incidents in Pennsylvania Crim- 
inal Procedure 23-26 

Drew, Mrs. John 132 

Dunlap's Book of Forms 235, 236 

Earle, George H 152 

Easter excursions I4> ^5 

"Egoist", The, by Henry T. King 171 

243 



Emotional Insanity plea 104 

Erskine, Thomas, Lord loi 

Erwin, J. Warner 37 

Exclusiveness of Philadelphia Judges . • . . 15 
16, 17 

Fairmount Park 9 

Fidelity Trust Co 39-45 

Fifth Street group of lawyers 144 

Fletcher, Benjamin R 190, 191, 192 

Folwell, Jonathan K 38 

Forensic oratory loi, 102, 1 1 i-i 14 

Fourth Street 20 

Fox, Daniel M 38 

Gellert 154 

Gemmell, William D 64 

Gibbons, Charles 153 

Goethe 24, 154 

Gowen, James E 160, 161 

Gowns for the judges 182-188 

Guillou, Constant 60 

Guillou, Victor 10, 60-65 

244 



Hagert, Henry S 150, 178, 179 

Hannis, William C 155 

Hanson, E. Hunn 225 

Hare, J. I. Clark 72-77, 79, 80, 159 

his work on the *'Law of Contracts" . . 73 

Hart, Thomas, Jr 10, 161, 162 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 167 

Hengelmiiller, Ladislaus von, minister 

from Austro-Hungary to the United 

States 2 7, 28 

Heysham, John 83, 84, 85 

Highway Robbery, anecdote of. . . .214, 215 

Hollingsworth, Samuel E 10 

Holloway, Crosse z^s 223 

Homicide case of Franz Berschine . . . .23-36 
Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Book Store". . .235 
Hopper, Edward 152-155 

anecdotes of 213, 238 

House of Refuge 1 75 

Hubbell, Horatio 136-139 

Independence Square 19, 20 

Ingersoll, Charles 144 

245 



Ingersoll, Edward 216 

Ingraham, Edward D 153 

Insanity plea, emotional 104 

Johnson, James F 161 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel 57, 99 

Jones, Horatio Gates 144 

Judges of Philadelphia 48-59 

their arrogance, 48-53 ; contrasted 
with English and other judges, 49, 50; 

their narrow-mindedness 54-58 

Judicial gowns 182-188 

Keene, George Frederick 63 

Kersek, Maria 23, 25, 26, 32, 34, 35, 36 

King, Henry T. . . 1 70-7 1 ; his "Egoist", ..171 

Knownothingism 71 

Krain, Austria 23, 29 

Krainish dialect 26, 29 

Lackawanna county 24, 25 

Lamb, Charles 62 

Lathrop, Mary F 95 

246 



Law Association 14 

Its collection of portraits .157, 190, 191 

Law Schools 10, 11, 12, 13 

Lawyers see Pennsylvania Lawyers 

Lawyers' club 15 

Lee, Robert M., anecdote of 228, 229 

Littleton, William E 40, 41 

Livensetter, Mahlon D 38 

Logan, Robert M 164 

Long Beach, N. J 150, 176 

Lowrie, Walter H 224 

Ludlow, James R 194 

Lynd, James, anecdote of . . 212, 213 

Machine-made lawyers 12 

McMichael, Morton 221 

McMichael, William 158, 221, 222, 223 

MacVeagh, Wayne 53» 54, 158 

Mann, William B., loses his watch .226, 227 

Markland, John H 166, 167, 180 

Mench, Edmund A 161 

Mercur, Chief-Justice 182 

Michael, Helen Abbott 97 

247 



Miniatures, legal 1 56 

Mitchell, E. Coppee 10, 14, 173, 174 

Mitchell, James T 10, 79, 158, 1 74 

Mitchell, Thomas S 37 

Mitcheson, MacGregor ] 140-143 

Murder-trial at Scranton 23-26 

Narrowmindedness at the bar 17 

New Jersey judge and lawyer 52, 53 

New York 1 80 

New York Public Library 180 

Nisi Prius Division of the Supreme Court 238 
Northern Liberties District. .38, 39, 147, 163 

Office students vs. Law School students 

II, 12, 13 

Official robes 182, 188 

Olmsted, Edward 45, 144 

Olyphant, Penna 24 

O'Neill, John P.. 102 ; anecdote of. .216-218 

Oratory loi, 102, 1 1 i-i 14 

Ostheimer, A. J., Austrian consul at Phil- 
adelphia 28 

248 



Pacific Railroad io6 

Parsons, James lo 

Paxson, Edward M 198, 199, 200, 203 

Peale, Rembrandt i57 

Peirce, William S. . 1 53 ; anecdote of . 2 1 2, 2 1 3 

Penitentiary, Eastern 32, 35» 3^ 

Pennsylvania Dutch voices 75 

Pennsylvania lawyers — their right to 

practice in all the courts 196-204 

Pennsylvania principahty 205, 211 

Pennsylvania Railroad 119, 1^6 

Pennsylvania State Bar Association . .15, 197 
PennsylvaniaUniversity Law School 10-13,93 
Pennypacker, Samuel W. . . 1 82, 1 84, 229, 230 

Philips, Hardman 205-2 1 1 

Philipsburg, Centre Co 205 

Phillips, Henry M., anecdote of 215, 216 

Pinkney, William loi 

Piatt, E. Greenough 10 

Porter, William A 6t, 158 

Portraits in the Law Library. . . 157, i90» 191 
Pratt, Joseph T 78-81 

249 



Price, Eli K 45, 236, 237 

Prothonotary an ornamental official .... 189 

Rawle, William Henry. .45, 1 10, 158, 182, 183 

Reed, William B 144, 154 

Rhoads, Charles 37 

Rhoads, Joseph R 155 

Roberts, Charles B 190, 192, 193 

Robes of office 182-188 

Rommel, ]. Martin 169, 170 

Roosevelt, Theodore 140 

"Row" offices 20 

St. Lawrence Hotel 103 

St. Mark's Church Bells case no 

Samuel, John 10, 11, 1 73 

Sargent, John S., (painter) 156 

Savidge's Life of B. H. Brewster 108 

Scranton, Penna 25, 26, 29, 30, 35, 36 

Sellers, David W 10, 14, 1 17-130, 150 

anecdote of 220, 221 

Seventh Street, north, 37; its lawyers ... 164 
Shapley, Rufus E 115, 116, 144 

250 



Sharpless, Nathan H 165 

Sharswood, George 88-91, 154, 166 

Sheppard, Furman 109, 1 10 

Sloat, Commodore 134 

Smith, Lewis Wain 158, 159 

Smith, Thomas Washington, trial of . . . . 103 

Smyth, Albert H 229, 230 

Social side of the legal profession 9-22 

Somerville, Mary 96 

South wark 1 94 

Splane's Petition 198-204 

State House 18, 19 

Sterne, Simon 1 79- 1 8 1 

Stokley, Mayor 116 

Strawberry Mansion 9 

Stroud, George M 216 

Stuart, Gilbert 157 

Supreme Court interferes with lawyers' 

rights 202, 203 

Sylvester, Sir John 227 

Thackara, Alexander 38 

Thackeray's "Fred Bayham" and "Rev. 

Charles Honeyman" 167 

251 



Thaw murder trial j j., 

Thayer, M. Russell 102-106, 189 

Thompson, Oswald 65, 66, 67 

Thorn, George W 144-151, 163 

Timbs, John 227 

Townsend, Joseph B 45, 154 

Trinity College, Dublin 102 

Troutman, George M 155 

Trust Companies, Establishment of. . 39-45 

Tuckerton Bay 150 

Typewriting machines 41-44 

Tyrone & Clearfield Branch of the Penna. 
R- R 205 

United States Court of Appeals for the 

Third Circuit 53 

United States District Court 82 

Vaux, Richard 182, 1 83 

Vulpius, Christine 24 

Wagner, Charles M 38 

Wagner, Philip 38 

252 



Walnut Street 20 

Washington, D. C 14 

Washington Grays memorial monument 222 

Washington Square 19, 20, 222 

Webb, Thomas 190, 194, 195 

Webster, Daniel loi, 238 

Weil, Edward H 224 

Weller, Christian 1 24 

Weller, Mrs. Christian 125 

Westcott, Thompson 150 

Wharton, George M 45 

Wharton, Henry 45, 75 

White, Richard P 14, 150, 176-178 

Williams, Ellis D 155 

Williamson, Passmore 38, 153 

Williamson, Thomas 38 

Women lawyers 92-100 



253 



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